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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


A 


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BV  4070  .M366  16  1860 
Mccormick  Theological 

Seminary. 
Inaugural  addresses  at  the 


"V.:  J  •  S  Wacners  LiiK  38  Ikasoti  Sr-PiiHaa^ 


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Chicao'o,   ILLINOIS. 


FalUsTf^'  tr  Joseph.  MMIson.  HTJll  South- IQ^^SP  PUl^ 


IJSTAUaURAL    ADDRESSES 


AT   THE   OPENING 


OP  THE 


PRESBYTERIAN 


THEOLOGICAL    SEIINAKY 


OP  THE 


NORTH    WEST, 

CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS. 


PHILADELPHIA : 
JOSEPH    M.    WILSON, 

No.  Ill  South  Tenth  Street,  below  Chestnut  Street. 

1860. 


INTRODUCTION. 


CHARGE    TO    THE    PKOFESSOKS 

BT 

Ket.  SAMUEL   T.  TTILSOX, 

PEESIDEXT   OF    THE   BOARD    OF   DIRECTOES. 

INAUGUllAL    ADDRESS 

BT 

NATHAN   L.  RICE,  D.  D., 

PROFESSOR   OF   DIDACTIC   AXD    POLEMIC    THEOLOGT. 

INAUGURAL    ADDRESS 

BT 

"WILLIS   LORD,  D.  D., 

EOFESSOR   OF   BIBLICAL   AND    ECCLESIASTICAL   HISTORY. 

INAUGURAL    ADDRESS 

BT 

LEROT   J.  HALSEY,  D.  D., 

PBOFESSOR    OF    HISTORICAL   AND    PASTORAL   THEOLOGY,    AND   CHrRCH   GOVEEXirEXT. 

INAUGURAL    ADDRESS 


WILLIAM  M.  SCOTT,  D.  D., 

PEOrZSSOR    OF   BIBLICAL   LITERATURE   AXD   EXEGESIS. 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  Presbyterian  Theological  Seminary  of  the  North  West 
having  been  tendered  to  the  General  Assembly,  in  session  at 
Indianapolis  in  May  1859,  by  direction  of  the  Synods  hav- 
ing control  thereof,  the  General  Assembly  passed  the  following 
resolution  : 

*•' Resolved  :  That  in  accordance  with  the  overtures  emanating 
from  eight  S3'nods,  this  Assembly  does  now  accept  the  direc- 
tion and  control  of  the  Seminary,  known  by  the  corporate  name 
and  style  of  the  Presbyterian  Theological  Seminary  of  the 
North  West." 

The  Assembly  located  the  Seminary  at  Chicago,  and  in  refer- 
ence to  a  communication  from  Cyrus  H.  McCormick,  Esq.,  dated, 
Washington,  May  1.3th,  1859;  proposing  to  endow  the  Semi- 
nary with  one  hundred  thousand  dollars^  on  condition  it  was  taken 
under  the  charge  and  control  of  the  General  Assembly  and 
located  at  Chicago,  Illinois,  the  Assembly  passed  the  following 
resolutions : 

"  Resolved :  That  this  General  Assembly  does  hereby  accept 
the  donation  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  made  by  Cyrus 
Hall  McCormick  to  them  for  the  endowment  of  four  Profes- 
sorships in  the  Presbyterian  Theological  Seminary  of  the  North 
West,  about  to  be  established  by  this  Assembly,  and  upon  the 
terms  and  conditions  therein  mentioned. 

''Resolved:  That  the  thanks  of  this  General  Assembly  be 
tendered  to  Mr.  C.  11.  McCormick  for  his  munificent  donation; 
and  that  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be  transmitted  to  Mr. 
McCormick  by  the  Stated  Clerk." 

(3) 


The  General  Assembly  elected  a  Board  of  Directors,  and 
four  Professors,  viz : 

N.  L.  RiGE,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Didactic  and  Polemic  Theology, 

Willis  Lord,  d.d.,  Prof,  of  Biblical  and  Ecclesiastical  History, 

LeRoy  J.  Halsey,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Historical  and  Pastoral 
Theology,  and  Church  Government, 

Wm.  M.  Scott,  d.d..  Professor  of  Biblical  Literature  and 
Exegesis, 

and  instructed  the  Board  of  Directors  "to  use  and  take  all 
proper  measures  necessary  to  put  the  Seminary  in  operation 
at  the  earliest  date  practicable." 

The  Board  met  in  Chicago,  by  the  appointment  of  the 
General  Assembly,  on  the  21st  of  June  1859,  and  made  ar- 
rangements for  opening  the  Seminary  on  the  14th  of  Septem- 
ber following;  and  appointed  the  26th  of  October  as  the  time 
for  the  formal  installation  of  the  Professors. 

On  the  26th  of  October,  1859,  the  Board  of  Directors  met  in 
the  North  Presbyterian  Church  of  Chicago,  and  after  a  sermon 
by  J.  H.  Brown,  D.D.,  the  Rev.  S.  T.Vilson,  President  of 
the  Board,  read  to  the  Professors  the  following  engagement, 
ordained  by  the  General  Assembly,  to  which  they  gave  their 
solemn  assent  and  affixed  their  respective  signatures; 

"In  the  presence  of  God  and  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of 
this  Seminar}'',  I  do  solemnly  profess  my  belief  that  the  Con- 
fession of  Faith  and  Catechisms  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
contain  a  summary  and  true  exhibition  of  the  system  of  doctrine, 
order,  and  worship  taught  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  the  only 
supreme  and  infallible  rule  of  faith,  and  my  approbation  of  the 
Presbyterian  form  of  Church  Government,  as  being  agreeable 
to  the  Scriptures;  and  do  promise  that  I  will  not  teach,  directly 
or  indirectly,  anything  contrary  to,  or  inconsistent  with,  the 
said  Confession  and  Catechisms,  or  the  fundamental  principles 
of  Presbyterian  Church  Government;  and  that  I  will  faithfully 
execute  the  office  of  a  Professor  in  the  Presbyterian  Theologi- 
cal Seminary  of  the  North  West." 

Prayer  having  been  offered,  the  Rev.  S.  T.  Wilson,  by  pre- 
vious appointment  of  the  Board,  delivered  a  Charge  to  the  Pro- 
fessors; and  the  day  following  the  Professors  delivered,  each, 
an  Inaugural  Address;  which  Charge  and  Addresses  are  here- 
with published,  by  order  of  the  Board  of  Directors. 


THE 


CHARGE  TO  THE  PROFESSORS 


Bi- 
ll E  V.     S .    T  .    WILSON, 

PRESIDENT   OF   THE   BOARD   OF   DIRECTORS. 


(5) 


THE  CHARGE  TO  THE  PROFESSORS. 


We  meet  to-day,  brethren  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  and 
Christian  friends,  under  circumstances  of  no  ordinary  solemnity; 
and  for  the  transaction  of  business  intimately  connected  with 
the  honour  of  religion,  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  decisions  of 
the  last  day. 

The  Presbyterian  Theological  Seminary  for  the  North  West 
is  this  day  to  be  formally  organized  by  the  inauguration  of  those 
who  have  been  chosen  to  be  its  Professors.  Such  an  event  as 
the  installation  of  four  professors  at  the  same  time  has  never 
before  occurred  in  connection  with  any  Theological  Seminary 
in  this  land ;  nor,  so  ftir  as  remembered,  in  any  other  land  since 
the  days  of  the  Reformation. 

From  the  circumstances  which  have  attended  the  previous 
efforts  to  establish  this  Institution,  it  is  unavoidable  that  many 
and  various  emotions  should  fill  the  minds  and  hearts  of  all 
concerned  in  the  present  exercises.  Three  years  ago  precisely, 
the  voice  of  the  seven  Synods  in  the  North  West,  as  the  voice 
of  one  man,  united  in  saying,  "  We  need  a  Seminary  for  the 
training  of  Ministers  for  this  wide  and  extending  field;  and 
with  the  help  of  God  we  will  arise  and  build  one.  The  pur- 
pose thus  so  harmoniously  formed  met  the  hearty  response 
of  every  Presbyterian  heart,  and  within  a  few  months  there- 
after such  a  beginning  had  been  made  as  seemed  to  promise  a 

(■) 


8 

speedy  realization  of  all  that  was  desired.  Unforeseen  diffi- 
culties however  arose,  which  not  onl}^  clouded  these  first 
i'avourable  prospects,  but  for  a  time  seemed  to  involve  the  whole 
enterprise  in  hopeless  ruin.  Nor  were  these  difficulties  re- 
moved, until  by  an  act  of  rare  Christian  magnanimity  on  the 
j)art  of  those  who  had  been  foremost  in  the  effort,  the  whole 
enterprise  was  transferred  to  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Church,  with  the  simple  request  that  a  Seminary,  on  the  same 
footing  with  those  already  under  the  care  of  the  Assembly, 
might  be  at  once  established.  The  transfer  thus  made  was 
accepted,  and  the  Seminary  now  to  be  organized  is  the  result. 

Brought  thus  into  closer  contact  with  the  great  throbbing 
heart  of  the  church,  the  Seminary  seemed  at  once  to  secure 
the  affections  and  to  call  forth  the  liberality  of  God's  people. 
One  gentleman  in  particular,  whose  name  will  be  hereafter  as 
an  household  word  among  us,  and  whose  noble  gift  will  re- 
main a  monument  more  enduring  than  brass,  whose  hands  God 
had  filled  with  wealth  and  whose  heart  he  had  moved  to  honor 
him  with  it,  immediately  bestowed  upon  the  institution  a  most 
munificent  endowment.  And  others  since,  with  kindred  liber- 
ality, have  provided  for  its  present  and  permanent  location  here 
in  this  great  city.  The  General  Assembly  too,  appreciating 
the  extent  of  the  field  to  be  occupied,  and  the  magnitude  of 
of  the  work  to  be  done,  with  a  singular  and  perhaps  unaccount- 
able unanimity,  at  once  proceeded  to  fill  the  chairs  of  instruc- 
tion in  the  infant  Seminary  with  four  of  her  choicest  sons;  all 
of  whom  have  been  led  subsequently,  not  only  to  accept  the 
places  thus  assigned  them,  but  in  the  good  providence  of  God, 
they  are  all  here  to-day  to  offer  to  you  their  solemn  pledges 
of  fidelity,  and  to  receive  at  your  hands  their  official  investi- 
ture. 

Such  having  been  the  steps  in  the  progress  of  this  matter, 
instead  of  pronouncing  now  upon  these,  or  upon  the  circum- 
stances by  which  they  have  been  attended,  or  the  influ- 
ences  by  which   the   present  condition  of  things   has  been 


9 

reached,  it  becomes  iis  rather,  in  humility  and  sorrow  for  very 
much  in  the  past,  and  with  hope  and  trust  in  God  for  every 
thing  in  the  future,  to  turn  our  hearts  in  filial  confidence  and 
love  to  that  blessed  word  of  his,  *'My  thoughts  are  not  3'^our 
thoughts,  neither  are  your  wa3's  my  wpys,  saith  the  Lord. 
For  as  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  my  ways 
higher  than  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts  than  your  thoughts." 

My  brethren,  the  Professors  elect !  That  branch  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  with  which  we  are  connected,  recognizing  it 
as  ail  important  part  of  her  great  work  in  the  establishment 
of  the  Redeemer's  kingdom,  to  raise  up  and  qualify  a  numer- 
ous and  efficient  Ministry,  has  chosen  to  accomplish  this 
througli  the  instrumentality  of  Theological  Seminaries,  estab- 
lished in  such  numbers  and  in  such  localities  as  the  exigencies 
of  the  Church  may  seem  to  require;  and  where  godly  young 
men  may  be  gathered  together  and  trained  for  the  work  of 
publishing  through  the  world  the  gospel  message.  And  having 
now  established  one  of  these  Seminaries  here,  the  Church  calls 
3'ou  to  do  for  her  this  work  of  instruction  and  training;  to  re- 
ceive at  her  hands  her  sons,  separated  unto  the  work  of  the 
ministiy,  and  to  qualify  them,  "to  go,"  in  the  fulfillment  of 
her  great  commission,  '-into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel 
to  every  creature." 

"While  therefore,  I  advert,  in  a  few  particulars,  to  the  work 
which  is  to  be  done,  I  would  charge  you,  dear  brethren,  in  the 
name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  Church  which  calls  you,  to 
prepare  here  a  race  of  Ministers  in  view  of  this  work,  and  for 
the  full  and  faithful  performance  of  it. 

The  work  to  be  accomplished  is  one  of  amazing  magnitude, 
if  considered  merely  in  connection  with  the  wants  of  this  par- 
ticular region.  In  establishing  this  Seminary,  the  General 
Assembly  designated  as  the  particular  field  of  its  operations, 
iJiis,  which  is  distinctively  and  truly  denominated  "the  Great 
North  West." 

Looking  abroad  therefore,  brethren,  from  the  place  where 
2 


10 

you  now  stand,  you  mny  take  in  the  dimensions  of  your  work, 
and  realize,  if  this  be  possible,  the  present  and  prospective 
magnitude,  and  the  certain  and  glorious  fruitfulness  of  it,  if 
properly  cared  for,  as  it  spreads  out  before  you  on  ever}'' 
hand,  beginning  at  the  very  doors  of  the  Seminary  and 
stretching  indefinitely  beyond.  The  Seminary  therefore 
comes  into  being  with  an  empire  as  its  distinctive  domain;  and 
what  a  weighty  practical  task  does  Providence  here  assign  it, 
along  with  the  gift  of  this  virgin  soil!  and  what  a  tremendous 
responsibility  does  it  assume  in  venturing  to  put  its  hand  to 
this  great  work ! 

But  how  much  more  grand  is  its  field  of  operations,  and 
how  much  more  responsible  its  work,  if  we  take  into  the  account, 
as  we  properly  may,  the  entire  country !  Leaving  out  of 
view  the  vast  continents  of  the  old  world,  the  countless 
myriads  of  Papal  and  Pagan  lands,  and  of  the  isles  of  the  sea, 
yen  have  a  ivorld  almost  here  at  your  very  doors.  Suice  our 
country  has  become  the  "high- way  between  the  two  great 
oceans ;  since  our  language  is  spoken,  and  our  Government  is 
planted  om  both  shores,  if  the  Church  were  ambitious,  it  could 
crave  no  loftier  enterprise  than  to  bring  under  its  spiritual 
sway  this  vast  ompire."  And  humbly  intent,  as  it  is,  on 
setting  up  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  wherever  this  language  is 
spoken,  or  the  aegis  of  this  Government  extends,  we  cannot  but 
wonder  and  tremble  ^tt  wiiat  God  has  given  it  to  do. 

But  is  the  work  to  foe  d'Oae  confined  to  this  particular  field 
<i,^  the  Seminary,  vast  and  increasing  as  it  is?  Is  it  circum- 
scribed even  by  the  boundaries  <$f  the  continent? 

I  anticipate  your  answer,  as  your  hearts  swelling  with 
Christian  benevolence,  -repeat  with  every  throb,  No,  no! 
"The  field  is  the  worid,""  said  our  Lord  when  defining  for  his 
Church  the  limits  of  her  work.  The  charter  of  the  Church, 
therefore.,  under  which  this  whole  enterprise  is  undertaken, 
covers  every  continent  and  every  isle;  and  her  patent  embraces 
every  kindred,  tongue,  and  people  under  the  whole  heaven. 


11 

And  does  any  one  ask  for  an  authoritative  exposition  of  this 
charter,  or  a  prosper  exemplification  of  its  catholic  spirit?  I 
point  him  to  the  recorded  history  of  the  first  ministers  of  the 
Church.  "Singly  and  in  gi'oups,"  says  one,  "these  penetrated 
into  the  solid  masses  of  heathenism,  and  left  their  foot-prints 
marked  in  blood.  The  torch  kindled  at  the  altar,  and  snatched 
from  hand  to  hand,  passed  to  the  confiuesof  the  known  world." 
If  the  history  of  the  first  ages  of  the  church  teaches  us  any 
lesson,  it  teaches  us  this  one,  that  to  be  a  Christian,  and  espe- 
.cially  to  be  a  Christian  minister  is  to  be  a  missionary.  Though 
our  eyes  ache,  therefore,  in  the  survey  of  the  field,  wide  and 
destitute,  in  the  midst  of  which  we  plant  this  Seminary  ; 
though  our  hearts  bleed  as  Ave  take  the  wider  view  of  the  en- 
tire country,  and  behold  the  mighty  harvests  ripe  and  perish- 
ing for  lack  of  reapers  who  may  thrust  in  the  spiritual  sickle 
and  gather  it ;  still  the  greatest  work  of  the  Church,  the 
greatest  work  of  the  Seminary,  and  of  you,  the  Professors,  lies 
beyond  where  the  zvorld  is  perishing  for  lack  of  knowledge. 
"  Our  lines,"  says  one  in  apt  and  beautiful  language,  "  have 
fiillen  to  us  in  a  Missionary  age;  not  the  first  in  our  Christian 
history,  but  the  first  since  the  Reformation  three  hundred 
years  ago,  and  perhaps  the  last  designed  in  Providence  to 
usher  in  the  glories  of  the  Millennium.  The  end  of  our  history 
turns  back  upon  its  beginning,  and  the  nineteenth  century  is 
toiling  to  repeat  the  first.  The  Apostles  and  Evangelists  have 
at  length  found  their  emulators,  who  accept  neither  mountains, 
oceans,  nor  rivers,  as  the  boundaries  of  their  zeal;"  who  know 
no  kingdom  but  that  of  Christ  our  Lord,  and  who  cheerfully 
suffer  the  loss  of  all  things  that  they  may  achieve  the  victories 
of  his  cross. 

The  hymns  and  psalms  of  praise  which  we  are  accustomed 
to  chant  in  our  Christian  assemblies  from  Sabbath  to  Sabbath, 
begin  to  embody  the  facts  of  sober  history,  and  their  loud 
notes  come  echoing  back  to  us  from  the  deep  darkness  of  many 
pagan  lauds,  in  startling  human  outcries:  as, 


12 

"  From  Greenland's  icy  mountains, 

From  India's  coral  strands  ; 
Where  Afric's  sunny  fountains 

Eoll  down  their  golden  sands  ; 
From  many  an  ai^cient  river, 

From  many  a  palmy  plain, 
They  call  us  to  deliver 

Their  land  from  error's  chain," 

Recognizing  therefore,  in  the  spirit  of  the  early  disciples, 
the  loorld  as  the  field  of  the  Church's  operations,  the  business 
of  this  Seminary,  and  your  business  as  its  Professors  will  be 
to  raise  up  an  army  of  missionary  ministers  who  by  their  zeal 
and  boldness,  and  their  intense  love  for  souls,  will  take  pos- 
session, in  the  name  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  not  only  of  this 
broad  land,  conceding,  not  for  a  moment,  the  right  of  Infidelity 
or  Romanism  to  possess  one  inch  of  it;  but  who,  disregarding 
all  boundaries  of  kindred  or  country,  will  also  penetrate  into 
every  region  of  the  earth  with  the  message  of  salvation  on 
their  lips;  and  so  realize  without  a  figure  that  Apocalyptic 
vision  of  the  "Angel  having  the  everlasting  Gospel  to  preach 
unto  them  that  dwell  on  the  earth,  and  to  every  nation  and 
kindred  and  tongue  and  people,"  until  "  He  of  the  golden  girdle 
and  glittering  feet,  now  King  of  saints,  shall  be  the  King  of 
all  the  nations." 

But  besides  the  extent  and  magnitude  of  the  work,  it  is 
also  compassed  with  peculiar  and  increasing  difficulties.  Who 
has  ever  written— nay,  who  could  write  the  philosophy  of  the 
American  mind,  especially  in  its  connection  with  religious  sub- 
jects ?  The  peculiar  characteristics  of  the  people,  no  less  than 
these  liberal  institutions  under  which  we  live,  seem  to  be  singu- 
larly ftiv curable  for  the  introduction  and  dissemination  of  every 
species  of  error  and  irreligion.  And  these,  when  fostered  and 
stimulated  as  they  are  by  the  intense  mental  and  social  activity 
of  the  age — that  activity  which  here  finds  its  intensest  devel- 
opment, propagate  themselves  with  prodigious  rapidity.    This 


13 

remark  is  made  not  in  the  way  of  complaint  that  our  institu- 
tions are  what  they  are,  or  that  this  activity  is  what  it  is;  but 
mere!}'  to  indicate  the  peculiar  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  and 
the  character  of  the  work  to  be  done  b}^  the  rising  race  of 
ministers. 

Consider   again,  I  beseech  you,  how  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  thraldom  of  Rome  is  extending  itself  over  the  fair 
face  of  this  land  consecrated  to  religious  as  well  as  civil  liberty ! 
Consider  too,  how  Spiritualism,  that  most  foolish  and  yet  most 
seductive  of  all  modern  errors,  is  secretly  and  powerfully  dis- 
seminating itself  like  some  active  poison,  among  all  classes  of 
the  people,  till  already  its  deluded  votaries  are  numbered  by 
millions  !      Consider    how    Infidelity  and    Rationalism,  trans- 
planted from  the  old  world,  are  striking  their  roots  deeper  and 
firmer  into  this  rich  virgin  soil,  till  their  dark  Upas  shade  begins 
to  rest  like  a  blight  upon  the  fiiirest  and  most  populous  por- 
tions of  the  land  !     Consider  how  the  conflict  already  begun, 
increases  ever}'-  hour,  in  respect  alike  to  the  obfigations  of  the 
Christian  Sabbath,  and  the  position  which  the  Bible  is  to  oc- 
cupy in  the  matter  of  popular  instruction.     Nor  will  this  con- 
flict be  terminated  till,  as  we  greatly  fear,  all  the  old  sanctions 
of  the  Sabbath  as  a  day  of  commanded  and  holy  rest  are  re- 
moved, and  the  tremendous  engine  of  common  school  education 
is  left  without  a  single  direct  religious   element  to  leaven  or 
sanctify  it !     Consider  with  what  untiring  zeal  and  activity 
the  champions  of  Infidelity  in  every  form  of  its  manifestation 
are  abroad  in  the  land,  seizing  every  opportunity,  and  employ- 
ing every  agency  for   the   dissemination    of  their  pernicious 
principles,  till  every  place  of  popular  assembly  resounds  with 
such  lectures,  and  every  press  groans  with  such  printed  pages, 
as  strike,  every  one  of  them,  at  the  very  foundations  of  all 
our   domestic,  social,  and   religious  institutions !     Nor  is    the 
pulpit  even  exempt  from  this  sacrilegious  invasion.     Consider 
again  how  bold  and  persistent  has  been,  and  is  yet,  the  cflbrfc 
to  put  Science  in  array  a:ain.>-t  the  Bible  ;  and  how  Literature 


14 

in  many  of  its  most  popular  and  influential  departments  is  made 
to  toil  and  grind  like  another  blind  Nazarite,  in  the  service  of 
those  who  have  degraded  it,  and  thus  to  bring  shame  and  de- 
rision upon  all  the  practical  teachings  and  blessed  results  of 
the  religion  of  Christ. 

When  such  and  even  greater  obstacles  are  to  be  encountered 
at  home  ;  and  when  the  petrified  superstition,  consolidated  with 
the  deposits  of  centuries,  and  the  mental,  and  moral,  and  spir- 
itual slavery  of  the  Catholic  world  ;  and  the  colossal  darkness 
and  idolatry — the  unspeakable  degradation  and  misery  of  the 
Pagan  Nations — are  to  be  overcome  and  removed  ;  what,  oh  ! 
what  should  be  the  character  and  the  qualifications  of  those 
who  are  to  proclaim  the  doctrines  of  the  true  religion  and  win 
large  conquests  for  Christ  ?  I  w^ould  recite  here  words  spoken 
by  one  who  has  now  entered  into  his  rest,  and  gotten  his 
crown,  when  a  few  jenYS  ago  he  occupied  the  position  which 
you  now  occupy  :  "  Looking  around  us,"  says  he,  "  w^e  see 
abundant  reason  for  arming  the  Christian  ministry  with  all  the 
wisdom  and  might  and  courage  which  it  is  possible  to  draw 
from  the  storehouses  of  knowledge  and  grace.  This  is  forced 
upon  us  equally  by  a  surve}^  of  the  Church  and  the  world.  In 
spite  of  those  lulling  strains  which  well-meaning  friends  of 
outward  amity  continue  to  sing,  we  behold  tokens  of  peril,  if 
not  of  judgment  on  every  hand. 

"  The  questions  which  our  fathers  debated,  even  at  the  risk  of 
life,  and  the  rights  which  they  maintained,  with  arms  in  their 
hands,  are  in  no  wise  more  stirring  than  those  which  we  see 
our  sons  must  debate.  Not  pettj^  scholastic  niceties  which 
may  divide  good  men,  but  stantis  aut  cadentk  ccdesiae.  Whether 
for  example,  the  infinite  Jehovah  is  a  personal  God,  or  a  self- 
developing  sum  of  all  things ;  whether  we  rightly  hold 
*'  the  Athanasian  Trinity,  or  must  accept  a  Sabellian  Godhead 
in  triple  manifestation :  whether  Holy  Scripture  is  inspired, 
or  merel}^  half  inspired,  or  not  inspired  at  all ;  whether  there 
is  a  spiritual  revelation  of  positive  truth,  or  only  a  theology 


15 

of  reason;  whether  atonement  is  expiatory  or  merely  dramatic; 
whether  the  ground  of  our  acceptance  with  God  is  a  forensic 
justification,  or  an  imputed  or  derived  life  of  holiness  ;  and 
Tvhether  there  shall  be  eternal  punishment,  or  fmite  punishment, 
'  or  no  punishment.  These  are  the  questions  now  rising  for  us, 
and  rising  within  the  churches  of  the  Reformation.  By  a  slow 
but  irresistible  process  the  distillations  of  the  German  alembic 
are  coming  to  tincture  the  theology  of  Britain  and  America. 
The  most  alarming  latitude  widens  around  us  ;  and  heresies 
which  all  the  confessions  of  all  the  Beformed  Churches,  with- 
out a  single  exception,  agree  in  denouncing,  and  at  which  even 
Bome  revolts,  are  declared  by  ministers  of  religion  not  to 
touch  the  foundation." 

Would  it  not  seem  as  if  these  pregnant  words  were  pro- 
phetic? Since  v:e  begin  to  see  the  form  and  outlines  of 
"  The  Broad  Church,"  with  its  diluted  creed,  its  gorgeous 
ritual,  and  its  sensuous  worship,  projecting  itself  clearly 
and  pretendingly  upon  the  ecclesiastical  horizon;  since  we 
begin  to  hear  the  commanding  eloquence  of  some,  who,  al- 
though erratic,  have  been  esteemed  hitherto  the  earnest  advo- 
cates of  spiritual  and  vital  godliness,  now  employed  in  heaping 
discredit  on  the  old  fundamental  doctrines  of  religion,  and  in 
giving  unlooked-for  aid  and  encouragement  to  those  who  are 
its  sorest  enemies;  and,  what  is  still  more  sad,  since  we  begin 
to  see  some  of  our  own  ministers,  high  in  place,  and  in  the 
confidence  and  affection  of  the  Church,  allying  themselves  in 
sympathy  and  in  conflict  with  those  who  are  waging  a  stout 
and  stubborn  warfare  against  some  of  our  most  sacred  and 
cherished  privileges  and  institutions  as  a  Christian  people. 

There  never  was  a  period,  perhaps,  w^hen  Christians  at  large 
had  greater  reason  to  be  filled  with  anxiety,  and  to  look  with 
solicitude  towards  the  impending  future.  In  the  old  w^orld 
dynasties  and  governments  are  rocking  on  the  bosom  of  a 
rumbling  volcano;  and  all  the  great  powers  there  in  mutual 
dread  and  jealousy,  are  arming  and  strengthening  themselves 


16 

either  for  defence  or  aggression.  In  the  new  world  men  who 
are  the  most  confident  are  filled  with  trembling  for  the  per- 
petuity of  our  institutions,  while  fanaticism  waxes  bold  and 
defiant,  and  the  daring  spirit  of  free  inquiry,  spurning  the 
land-marks  of  the  Fathers,  and  rejecting  the  principles  which 
centuries  have  settled,  is  making  rapid  and  strange  revolutions 
in  society. 

We  live,  as  has  been  truly  said,  in  an  age  of  unparalleled 
projection,  adventure,  change,  accomplishment,  and  when  vast 
and  pregnant  schemes  for  the  future  of  religion  and  politics 
are  projecting  themselves  far  into  the  territory  of  established 
opinions  and  existing  institutions. 

What  then  is  demanded  of  those  who  would  be  the  success- 
ful champions  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus;  the  banner-men 
of  that  kingdom  which  is  not  of  this  world,  at  such  a  time, 
in  such  an  age,  and  in  the  teeth  of  such  obstacles?  For  such 
times,  and  for  such  labours  the  Church  demands  soldiers,  men 
of  mettle  and  training,  men  of  fire  and  dauntless  courage, 
"lion-like  men,"  who  can  bravely  do  or  die  for  Christ's  cross 
and  crown;  men  like  those  who  built  the  walls  of  Jerusalem 
in  troublous  times,  holding  the  working  implement  in  the  one 
hand  and  the  fighting  implement  in  the  other;  now  squaring 
the  foundation  stones,  or  lifting  the  capstone  to  its  place  of 
beauty;  anon,  smiting  the  enemy  hip  and  thigh,  with  the 
weapons  in  hand.  It  is  demanded  that  they  be  men  of  ac- 
tivity, men  of  industry,  men  of  learning,  men  of  capability. 
As  the  champions  of  error  are  learned,  acute,  and  subtile,  so 
must  the  ministers  of  Christ  be.  As  the  emissaries  of  Satan 
are  active,  enterprizing,  and  painstaking  in  the  propagation  of 
error  and  irreligion,  the  ministers  of  Christ  must  be  more  so  in 
the  dissemination  of  the  truth. 

It  is  demanded  that  they  be  men  carefully  taught  in  the 
history  of  the  Church.  "Every  thing  pertaining  to  its  out- 
ward extension,  as  the  Gospel  has  travelled  from  realm  to 
realm,  conflicting  and  conquering;  everything  pertaining  to  its 


17 

polity,  as  the  Church  has  passed  from  Apostolic  simplicity  to 
the  scarlet  llauntings  of  the  Papacy;  every  thing  pertaining  to 
the  inner  life  of  the  Church,  as  piety  has  waxed  or  Avaned; 
every  thing  pertaining  to  worship,  from  the  Church  of  the 
Catacombs,  chanting  its  homely  music,  preaching  and  hearing 
its  modest  homily,  and  saying  its  unstudied  prayers,  to  the  * 
church  of  surpliced  priests,  and  tinkling  bells,  and  swinging 
censers." 

It  is  demanded  that  they  be  men  securely  and  thoroughly 
grounded  in  the  great  doctrines  of  the  Church,  as  "from  the 
crude,  artless  statements  of  Clement,  Ignatius,  and  Polycarp, 
these  have  grown  up  through  the  ages  out  of  the  Christian 
consciousness,  fed  by  the  Living  Word,  and  interpreted  by 
Christian  science,  till,  becoming  clearer  and  fuller  and  stronger 
from  stage  to  stage,  they  have  found  their  maturest  and  best 
expression  in  the  Westminster  Confession  and  Catechisms  " 

It  is  demanded  that  they  be  men  of  great  earnestness  and 
devotion  of  character.  Men  who  will  feel  intensely  and  work 
intensely — men  who  will  take  a  living,  loving  interest  in  souls, 
and  try  to  save  them,  pulling  them  with  both  hands  out  of 
the  fire.  The  secret  of  Chalmers's  wonderful  power  was  de- 
scribed to  be  "his  blood  earnestness."  Says  Guthrie,  that 
flashing  torch  of  Scotland,  "  Though  every  minister  were  as 
a  flaming  fire  in  the  service  of  his  God,  though  every  bishop 
were  a  Latimer,  every  reformer  were  a  Knox,  every  preacher 
were  a  Whitefield,  every  missionary  were  a  Martyn,  the  work 
is  greater  than  ministers  can  accomplish;  and  if  men  will  not 
submit  that  the  interests  of  nations,  and  the  success  of  armies 
shall  be  sacrificed  to  routine  and  forms  of  office,  much  less 
should  these  be  tolerated  where  the  cause  of  souls  is  at  stake." 
What  a  day  for  the  Church  and  for  the  world,  will  that  be  i 
when  every  young  minister  goes  forth  of  the  Seminary  in  the 
spirit  and  power  of  Brainerd's  prayer,  "Oh  that  I  were  a 
flaming  fire  in  the  service  of  my  God !" 

It  is  demanded  that  they  be  men  who  are  deeply  and 

3 


18 

thoroughly  possessed  with  the  dignity  and  glory  of  their 
office;  who,  because  they  are  "Ambassadors  for  Christ/'  will 
esteem  themselves  invested  with  honours  and  responsibilities 
far  above  an}' thing  in  the  power  of  earthly  prince  or  potentate 
to  bestow — Avho,  because  they  are  authorized  to  say,  "We  are 
fellow-labourers  with  God,"  are  able  to  stand  up  like  Paul,  and, 
"confronting  a  sceptic,  sneering,  scoffing  world,  bravely  say, 
*I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.'"  It  is  written 
of  Elijah  the  Tishbite,  when  he  had  prayed  for  rain,  and  the 
little  cloud  out  of  the  sea  was  reported  to  him,  that  he  girt  up 
his  loins  and  with  the  storm  at  his  back  ran  abreast  of  the 
smoking  horses  of  Ahab's  chariot  unto  the  gates  of  Jezreel. 
This  may  have  been  a  position  honourable  to  the  old  Prophet, 
and  befitting  his  holy  office,  or  it  may  not.  "  But  to  run  by 
the  chariot  where  Jesus  sits,  his  crown  on  his  head,  his  bow 
in  his  hand,  and  his  sword  by  his  thigh;  to  employ  their  feet 
in  offices  which  have  employed  angels'  wings;  to  bear  the 
news  of  mercy  to  dying  sinners;  and  to  gather  crowds  around 
the  Saviour,  that  they  may  strew  his  path  with  palms,  and 
swell  the  song  of  ^  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David !' — for  such  a 
work  as  this  a  king  might  cast  off  robes  and  diadem."  From 
such  employment  as  this,  the  finest  powers,  the  noblest  accom- 
plishments, and  the  loftiest  station  must  always  receive  new 
acquisitions  of  honour  and  glory. 

It  is  demanded  again  that  they  be  men  who  are  emulous  for 
the  character  and  the  success  and  the  glory  of  the  Church, 
whose  ministers  they  are.  While  in  the  spirit  of  evangelical 
liberality  they  shout,  All  hail,  brothers,  God  speed  thy  work! 
to  the  captains  and  the  standard-bearers,  and  the  toiling  hosts 
of  the  other  tribes  of  Israel,  they  should  still  feel  that  the 
banners  which  they  bear,  like  those  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  are 
to  be  always  nearest  to  the  ark  of  God  and  the  Holy  Taber- 
nacle, as  appointed  for  the  guard  and  defence  of  these. 

But,  above  all  things,  it  is  demanded  that  they  be  men 
grounded  in  the  word  of  God,  mighty  in  the  Scriptures,  rich 


19 

ia  those  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge,  of  faith  and  ex- 
perience drawn  from  the  exhaustless  mines  hid  in  the  holy 
moiinlains,  Siiiai  and  Calvary!     In  undertaking  to  evangelize 
the  Pagan  nations  of  the  earth,  some  of  which  are  civilized, 
and  some  yet  in  barbarism ;  in  undertaking  to  subdue  this  broad 
land  of  our  inheritance  for  Christ;   to  plant  in  the  tops  of  all 
these  mountains  that  handful  of  corn,  the  fruit  of  which  shall 
shake  like  Lebanon,  what  power  is  sufficient  for  this  work  save 
the  power  of  God  ?   What  weapon  can  possibly  prevail,  save  only 
the  "Sword  of  the   Spirit"  which  is   the   "Word  of  God?" 
What  else  is  able  to  control  the  passions,  or  govern  the  con- 
science,  or  ail'ect   the   hearts   of  men?     Philosoph}'',   human 
wisdom,  the  highest  eflbrts  of  genius,  and  the  most   moving 
persuasives  to  virtue  have  never  yet,  alone   or  in  combined 
power,  ellected  a  spiritual  reformation,  or  converted  a  single 
soul !     But  the  Word  of  God  !  it  is  Spirit  and  it  is  Life  !     This, 
this  is  to  do  the  battles  of  the  Lofd  of  Hosts  j  this  is  to  bind 
in  fetters  of  love  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  every  stubborn    and 
stout-heartxid  rebel;  this  is  to  level  the  mountains  and  fill  up 
the  valle3's,  and  prepare  the  way  for  the  coming  of  the  Prince 
of  Peace,  and  for  the  universal  introduction  of  his  happy  reign. 
Then  let  this  inspired  volume,  God's  own  Gospel,  be  enthroned 
in  each  one  of  these  chairs  of  the  Seminary.     Let  our  young 
ministers  be  made  acquainted  thoroughly  with  those  "colossal 
characters  and  events  which  symbolize  so  well   the  elder  dis- 
pensations of  the  Spirit.     Train  them  to  feel  at  home  with  the 
great  Apostles,  Evangelists,  and  Mart3^rs  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment.    Let  them  ponder  every  syllable  of  the  book  of  the 
generation  of  Jesus  Christ."     Inspire  them  with  a  taste  for 
the  grand  simplicity  and  truthfulness  of  the  Scriptural  narra- 
tives.    Teach  them  to  interpret  the  ways  of  God  in  providence 
and  redemption  out  of  the  Word  of  God.     Let  them  "acquire 
their  critical  tact,"  their  historical  acumen,  and  their  doctrinal 
principles  in  the  "  schools  of  the  Prophets,  Evangelists,  and 
Apostles,"  and  we  shall  have  no  fears  of  their  becoming  either 


20 

visionary  or  bigoted;  either  foggy  or  fanatical  \n  the  perform- 
ance of  their  great  work.  Standing  full  and  square  and  firm 
upon  the  Bible;  they  will  show  themselves  to  be  not  "  sensation 
preachers,"  but  workmen  that  need  not  to  be  ashamed,  rightly 
dividing  the  word  of  truth,  and  approved  of  God. 

Such,  imperfectly,  are  the  ministers  dema.nded  by  the  age 
and  the  work — "  men  of  the  brightest  talents,  and  the  largest 
learning,  and  the  warmest  piety;  men  w^ho  will  fill  with  power 
the  pulpits  of  our  cities  and  our  towns;  men  who  will  sweep 
the  prairies  on  their  errands  of  mercy ;  men  who  will  stand  on 
the  Pacific  coast,  their  backs  turned  towards  us,  facing  the 
Orient  on  the  other  side;  men  who  will  take  their  lives  in 
their  hands,  going  amongst  the  Heathen,  and  the  Moslems, 
and  the  Jews.  These  are  the  men  we  need  in  vastly  increasing 
numbers,  as  the  population  of  the  globe  swells  on ;  and  our 
own  land,  the  last  chosen  of  Providence  to  accomplish  its 
grandest  consummations,  pushes  forward  into  the  van  of  the 
march  of  the  moving  host." 

And  now,  brethren,  beloved  for  your  work's  sake,  we  com- 
mit this  infant  school  of  sacred  learning,  with  all  its  masculine 
proportions  and  strange  maturity,  into  your  keeping.  We  ex- 
pect it  to  receive  its  form  from  your  hands,  and  that  it  will  be 
baptized  into  your  spirit.  Under  God,  its  character,  and  its 
powers,  and  the  streams  of  its  influence  going  forth  from  3'ear 
to  year,  must  be  very  much  what  3'ou  make  them.  Let  then 
all  your  contact  with  these  issuing  streams,  and  all  your  influ- 
ence upon  them,  like  the  salt  of  the  old  Prophet,  contribute 
always  to  heal  and  sanctify  them,  so  that  all  the  lands  which 
they  may  water  shall  be  made  thereb}''  to  bloom  like  Eden. 

And  as  God's  people,  out  of  their  deep  povert}',  contribute 
of  their  substance  to  endow  this  Seminary  ;  especially  as  they 
shall  bring  hither  their  sons  consecrated  unto  God  for  the  work 
of  the  ministry,  I  charge  you  under  the  sanctions  of  that  cov- 
enant of  tears  and  sacrifices  by  which  these  have  been  sepa- 
rated unto  this  service — I  charge  you  in  the  name  of  God  who 


21 

has  CcalleJ  you  ;  be  ye  faithful  to  these  sons  of  the  covenant 
whose  feet  are  to  be  winged  with  messages  of  grace  and  sal- 
vation to  a  dying  world ;  be  ye  kind  and  tender  towards  them 
as  your  own  sons ;  and,  receiving  them  as  from  God  to  be 
trained  for  the  higiiest  and  most  difficult  office  in  the  world, 
be  ye  diligent  and  laborious  to  develope  every  talent,  and  to 
mature  every  grace,  and  to  cducaic  them  as  those  who  are  to 
be  made  "wise  to  wia  souls"  for  Christ  and  heaven. 

Your  t.'Lsk  is  a  noble  one;  your  work  one  of  unknown  re- 
sponsibilities, and  concerning  which  you  have  the  profoundest 
reasons  for  saying,  "  Who  is  sutlicient  ?" 

As  then  you  are  to  expound  the  ways  of  God,  and  trace  his 
mysterious  footsteps  in  the  long  ages  of  the  past;  as3^ouareto 
teach  what  he  has  done  for  our  race,  as  made  known  in  his  word; 
as  you  are  to  unfold  the  great  doctrines  of  the  true  religion 
on  which  hang  eternal  things,  and  by  such  means  raise  up  a 
company  of  men  who  shall  be  thoroughly  furnished  for  the 
great  work  of  the  ministry — surely  God  alone  can  show  you 
how  to  do  this  aright.  He  alone  can  make  you  strong  enough 
and  wise  enough  for  this  solemn  and  responsible  business.  I 
charge  you  then  again,  in  all  the  earnestness  of  a  growing 
sympathy  with  3'ou  in  j'our  weighty  duties — I  charge  you  to 
seek  your  light  from  Ilim  who  is  the  Father  of  lights,  and 
with  whom  is  no  variableness  neither  shadow  of  turning ; 
to  seek  your  wisdom  from  Him  who  giveth  liberally  and  up- 
braideth  not ;  to  seek  your  sufficiency  from  Him  who  is  a 
present  refuge  and  an  Almighty  helper ;  and  to  seek  all  your 
results  from  Him  who  is  able  to  make  you  joyful  in  all  the  la- 
bour of  your  hands. 

Says  one  who  is  himself  a  professor,  "  No  man  can  avoid 
eternal  shame  in  so  difficult  a  work,  but  by  taking  hold  of 
God's  strength  and  ceasing  from  man." 

Therefore,  beloved  brethren,  assured  that  a  multitude  of 
hands  are  at  this  moment  stretching  out  over  your  heads ;  that 
a  multitude  of  prayers  are  ascending  to  the  throne  of  God  on 


22 

your  behalf ;  and  that  a  strong  cordon  of  faith,  entering  within 
the  veil,  is  now  binding  the  Seminary  and  you  its  Professors, 
to  the  infallible  promises, — what  can  we  the  Directors  and  re- 
presentatives of  the  Church,  do  better  than  to  mingle  our  bene- 
dictions and  our  supplications  over  you?  "The  Lord  hear  you 
in  the  day  of  trouble ;  the  name  of  the  God  of  Jacob  defend 
you,  send  you  help  from  the  Sanctuary,  and  strengthen  you 
out  of  Zion — remember  all  your  offerings,  and  accept  your 
burnt  sacrifices — grant  you  according  to  your  own  hearts,  and 
fulfil  all  your  council !  And  may  grace  be  unto  you,  and  peace 
from  Him  which  is,  and  which  was,  and  which  is  to  come  ;  and 
from  the  seven  spirits  which  are  before  his  throne;  and 
from  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  faithful  witness  and  the  first  be- 
gotten of  the  dead,  and  the  Prince  of  the  kings  of  the  earth ; 
and  unto  Him  that  loved  us,  and  washed  us  from  our  sins  in 
his  own  blood,  and  hath  made  us  kings  and  priests  unto  God 
and  his  Father,  to  him  be  glory,  and  dominion  for  ever  and 
ever.     Amen." 


Tho'  S  W^oner's  Lifi  38  Hadscin  S'-PliP.a 


Professor  of  Polemic  and  Didactic  Theology 

RilUsh^a.  Ij  Joseph  MWilson  mil  South  lO^^S^  PUl'^ 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS 

BY 

NATHAN    L.    RICE,    D.  D,, 

PROFESSOR   OF   DIDACTIC   AND   POLEMIC   THEOLOGY. 

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INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  OF  N.  L.  RICE. 


Nature  and  Revelation  alike  proclaim  the  value  of  truth. 
The  discovery  of  it  is  the  object  in  every  department  of  in- 
vestif^ation ;  and  in  every  department  the  interests  of  mankind 
are  promoted  in  the  proportion  that  truth  is  known  and  re- 
garded. 

This  principle,  so  universally  true  of  God's  natural  kingdom, 
is  preeminently  true  of  his  spiritual  kingdom.  The  religious 
beliefs  of  men  necessarily  mould  their  moral  characters,  and 
direct  their  energies.  Holiness  is  nothing  more  or  less  than 
obedience  to  the  truth.  The  only  religious  zeal  acceptable  to 
God,  is  '"'according  to  knowledge."  The  highest  liberty  man 
can  enjo}^,  is  that  which  the  truth  gives  him.  "Ye  shall  know 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free.  If  the  Son  there- 
fore shall  make  you  free,  ye  shall  be  free  indeed."  God's  re- 
vealed truth  is  the  proper  nutriment  of  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
soul — the  milk  for  the  young  disciple ;  the  meat  for  the  more 
mature;  and  that  truth  only  is  the  means  of  sanctification. 
''  Sanctify  them  through  thy  truth  ;  thy  word  is  truth."  To 
assist  candidates  for  the  Christian  ministry  in  obtaining  a 
thorough  acquaintance  with  God's  system  of  revealed  truth, 
and  the  best  method  of  teaching  it  to  men  of  all  classes,  is  the 
appropriate  work  of  Professors  of  Theology. 


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The  department  of  instruction  assigned  to  me  by  the  General 
Assembly,  in  this  Institution,  embraces  the  entire  system  of 
doctrines  and  morals  contained  in  the  sacred  Scriptures.  My 
duty  is  to  teach  candidates  for  the  sacred  office,  first,  how  to 
state,  illustrate,  and  prove  each  of  the  doctrines  contained  in 
the  Divine  system,  and,  secondly,  how  to  defend  them  against 
the  multiplied  forms  of  error,  by  which  they  are  constantly  as- 
sailed. The  mere  statement  of  what  is  embraced  in  Didactic  and 
Polemic  Theology,  reveals  the  extentof  the  field  over  which,  in 
this  department  of  instruction,  it  is  necessary  to  travel;  and  even 
a  superficial  glance  at  the  past  history  of  the  Church  and  the 
world,  is  sufficient  to  discover  to  us  the  difficulty  and  the  re- 
sponsibility of  the  work.  If  in  the  ordinary  work  of  the  min- 
istry, we  constantly  feel  the  absolute  necessity  of  Divine  illu- 
mination; how  much  more  is  this  inestimable  blessing  needed 
in  the  work  of  teaching  them  how  to  discharge  the  duties  of 
the  sacred  office  ! 

Faith  is  the  leading  condition  of  salvation.  It  is  that  ex- 
ercise of  the  mind,  or  that  grace,  from  which  all  the  other 
graces  may  be  said  to  flow.  The  disbelief  of  the  Scriptures 
as  completely  shuts  out  from  the  view  of  the  mind  the  glorious 
objects  they  reveal,  as  if  they  had  no  existence.  Conse- 
quently it  renders  love,  repentance,  and  every  other  grace  im- 
possible. The  most  important  question  ever  asked,  is,  "What 
must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?"  and  the  most  important  answer  ever 
given  to  any  question,  is  the  answer  to  this.  Didactic  Theology 
shows  the  necessity  and  the  unspeakable  importance  of  the 
question,  and  gives  the  true  answer.  Polemic  Theolog}^  de- 
fends both  the  question  and  the  answer  against  all  the  assaults 
of  error. 

It  will  not  be  inappropriate  to  the  present  occasion,  to  con- 
sider the  source  from  which  sound  Theology,  the  object  of 
saving  faith,  is  to  be  derived,  and  the  best  method  of  teaching 
Theolog}^,  Didactic  and  Polemic. 

In  considering  the  source  from  whence  Theology  is  to  be 


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derived,  several  important  questions  might  be  discussed:  as 
how  far  the  human  mind  can  discover  the  being,  the  perfec- 
tions, and  the  will  of  God,  without  a  revelation;  whether 
unwritten  tradition  forms  any  part  of  that  revelation  which  is 
to  guide  us  in  faith  and  morals;  whether  the  Apocr3'phal 
books,  as  they  are  called,  are  entitled  to  a  place  in  the  sacred 
Canon ;  whether  there  is  on  earth  any  infallible  interpreter  of 
God's  revehition.  I  prefer,  however,  to  pass  by  all  these 
questions,  important  though  the}^  are,  to  consider  others,  which, 
in  our  day,  are  assuming  great  prominence,  and  which  demand 
the  attention  of  every  theologian.  In  the  discussion,  I  assume 
that  the  Scriptures  are  a  revelation  from  God ;  and  that  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  contain  the  entire  revelation  which 
God  designed  to  guide  mankind  in  faith  and  morals.  These 
positions  will  be  denied  by  none  but  infidels  and  papists;  and 
I  do  not  now  propose  to  controvert  the  errors  of  either  of  these. 
Assuming  these  truths,  I  remark  : 

1.  The  fact  that  God  has  given  to  mankind  a  revelation,  is 
evidence  conclusive,  were  there  no  other,  of  their  incompetency 
to  discover,  by  any  other  means,  those  truths  which  he  has 
thus  taught.  If  the  Word  of  God  is  "  a  lamp  to  the  feet  and 
a  light  to  the  path,"  it  is  so,  because  without  it  we  must  walk 
in  darkness.  "  The  world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God ;"  and, 
therefore,  could  not  know  his  will,  their  duty,  or  their  des- 
tiny. 

2.  The  fact,  that  God  has  given  his  revelation  in  human 
language,  is  evidence  conclusive,  that  the  true  office  of  a 
teacher  of  Theolog}'',  whether  in  the  Seminary  or  in  the  pulpit, 
is  that  of  cm  interpreter  of  language.  In  what  other  way  can 
we  become  acquainted  with  the  ideas  God  designed  to  commu- 
nicate, than  by  a  correct  understanding  of  the  words  which 
are  the  medium  of  communication  between  God  and  man? 
"To  the  word  and  to  the  testimony,"  saith  Isaiah.  "Search 
the  Scriptures,"  said  our  Lord.  Lukfe  highly  commended  the 
Bereans,  because  they  heard  the  Apostles  attentively,  "and 


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searched  the  Scriptures  daily,  "whether  these  things  were  so." 
Apollos  was  "an  eloquent  man,  and  mighty  in  the  Scriptures." 
At  Thessalonica  Paul  reasoned  with  the  Jews  "out  of  the 
Scriptures."  Christ  crucified  was  the  theme  of  the  Apostles, 
whether  they  preached  to  Jews  or  Greeks,  to  the  learned  or 
the  unlearned.  The  clamours  of  the  Jews  for  a  sign,  and  of 
the  Greeks  for  ivisdom,  did  not  divert  them  from  the  inspired 
word.  The  example  of  Paul  is  surely  worthy  of  the  imitation 
of  uninspired  men.  "And  I,  brethren,"  said  he  to  the  Corin- 
thian Christians,  "when  I  came  to  you,  came  not  with  excel- 
lency of  speech  or  of  wisdom,  declaring  unto  you  the  testimony 
of  God.  For  I  determined  not  to  know  any  thing  among  you, 
save  Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified.  And  my  speech  and  my 
preaching  was  not  with  enticing  words  of  man's  wisdom,  but 
in  demonstration  of  the  spirit  and  of  power."  It  is  a  remark- 
able fact,  that  in  the  preaching  of  Christ  and  his  Apostles  we 
discover  not  a  trace  of  any  existing  system  of  philosophy. 

The  Scriptures  claim  not  only  to  be  a  revelation  from  God, 
but  to  teach  completely  all  that  is  necessar}''  to  make  us  "  wise 
unto  salvation."  No  doctrine,  therefore,  is  worthy  of  our  con- 
fidence, or  can  be  safely  received  into  our  creed,  unless  it  is 
sustained  by  the  language  of  the  Scriptures,  fairly  inter- 
preted ;  and  no  minister  of  the  Gospel  has  the  right  to  ask  his 
hearers  to  receive  the  doctrines  he  preaches,  till  he  has  sus- 
tained them  by  a  direct  appeal  to  the  language  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.     The  Apostles  themselves  gladly  submitted  to  this  test. 

Nor  is  the  principle  for  which  we  are  contending,  limited  to 
what  are  technically  called  the  doctrines  of  Christianity.  It 
applies  with  equal  force  to  the  duties  arising  from  the  doc- 
trines. The  world  has  as  signally  failed  in  discovering  the 
true  code  of  morals,  apart  from  the  Scriptures,  as  in  reasoning 
out  a  creed.  The  conscience  is  not  a  light  in  the  mind,  as  it 
has  been  so  often  represented,  but  a  faculty  to  be  enlightened. 
Like  the  judge  on  the  b^nch,  it  decides  each  particular  case 
according  to  its  view  of  the  law.     One  of  the  arguments  most 


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constantly  urj^ed  by  Christian  ministers  to  prov.o  the  necessity 
of  a  Divine  revelation,  is  the  entire  Inilure  of  the  wise  men  of 
the  world  to  discover  the  true  code  of  morals.  lu  ascertain- 
in<^'  the  duty  of  men,  therefore,  the  appeal  must  be,  in  all  cases, 
to  the  lan.E^uiJge  of  inspiration,  interpreted  in  accordance  wi(h 
the  known  principles  of  langunge. 

3.  The  fact  that  God  gave  a  revelation,  not  for  the  learned, 
but  for  all  classes  of  men  ;  not  for  any  one  age  or  nation,  but 
for  all  ages  and  all  nations ;  proves,  that  that  revelation  may 
be  understood,  at  least  as  to  its  direct  teaching,  without  the 
aid  of  human  science.  It  is  an  instructive  fact,  tliat  the  Gos- 
pel was  understood,  and  did  achieve  its  most  signal  triumphs, 
at  periods  when  every  existing  system  of  philosophy  wns  fun- 
damentally erroneous..  The  entire  history'-  of  the  Church  in 
all  ages,  and  in  the  present,  sustains  me  in  the  assertion — that 
the  Gospel  has  lost  its  power  over  the  human  conscience  and 
heart,  precisely  in  the  degree  in  which  there  has  been  depar- 
ture from  the  obvious  meaning  of  the  language  of  the  Bible, 
to  accommodate  its  teaching  to  any  science  or  system  of  phil- 
osophy. The  history  of  the  Church  furnishes  not  a  solitary 
exception  to  this  general  statement ;  indeed,  one  of  the  most 
convincing  proofs  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  is  the 
fact,  that  every  attempt  to  improve  upon  their  obvious  mean- 
ing, (and  there  have  been  many  such,)  has  been  attended 
with  loss  of  power,  or  has  exhibited  a  perverted  and  pernicious 
power. 

True,  there  have  been  instances,  not  a  few,  in  which  a  mix- 
ture of  philosophy,  materially  modifying  the  interpretation  of 
the  language  of  the  Scriptures,  has  produced  a  temporary  ef- 
fervescence, which  has  been  mistaken  for  an  increase  of  sancti- 
fying power;  but  in  every  instance  the  results  have  reproved 
the  presumption  of  self-conceited  men.  When  in  the  third 
century,  the  New  Platonism,  so  much  admired  by  the  learned 
Origen,  was  introduced  into  the  Theology  of  the  Church,  the 
multitude  of  ascetics  who  hastened  to  the  wilderness  to  live  in 


30 

seclusion,  in  devout  meditation  and  bodily  mortifications,  awa- 
kened the  admiration  of  many  sincere  Christians,  and  even  of 
eminent  ministers  of  Christ;  and  in  our  own  day,  the  Church 
of  Rome  still  applauds  and  worships  those  devout  dwellers  in 
dreary  solitudes,  as  "lights  of  the  desert."  Yet  this  admix- 
ture of  human  philosophy  with  Divine  truth  substituted  a  spu- 
rious piety  for  vital  godliness,  and  rendered  the  most  religious 
persons  the  most  worthless. 

And  within  the  last  thirty  years,  the  introduction  of  a  new 
metaphysics  into  the  Theology  of  our  own  Church,  in  connec- 
tion with  revivals  of  religion,  seemed  to  add  great  power  to 
these  works  of  grace,  and  gave  great  prominence  and  almost 
unbounded  influence  to  a  class  of  fiery  evangelists,  whose  labors 
filled  the  churches  with  unconverted  and  self-righteous  mem- 
bers. Men  were  assured  that  they  could  and  must  regenerate 
themselves  ;  and  it  is  not  surprising,  that  multitudes  persuaded 
themselves  that  they  had  performed  the  difi&cult  work.  Crowds 
attended  upon  their  preaching  with  intensest  interest :  and  the 
news  of  multiplied  converts  was  published  throughout  the 
land.  Soon  a  terrible  reaction  occurred,  and  the  withering  ef- 
fects of  those  spurious  revivals  have  long  since  been  seen  and 
deplored.     So  it  has  been,  and  so  it  will  be. 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  would  not  array  Christi- 
anity and  Science  against  each  other.  God  cannot  contradict 
himself,  lie  has  revealed  himself  partly  in  his  works  ;  he  has 
revealed  himself  more  fully  in  his  word.  Beyond  a  doubt, 
these  two  revelations  are  perfectly  harmonious.  If  they  ever 
seem  in  conflict,  it  is  because  one  or  the  other  has  been  misin- 
terpreted. Because  we  know  the  teachings  of  Nature  and 
Revelation  to  be  perfectly  harmonious,we  cannot  but  desire  the 
knowledge  of  the  former  to  be,  as  nearly  as  possible,  perfected. 
^  Christianity  has  much  to  hope,  for,  and  nothing  to  fear,  from 
the  progress  of  true  philosophy.  It  dreads  only  that  which  is 
false. 

We  do  not  contend,  therefore,  that  the  theologian  can  de- 


31 

rive  no  advnntago  from  science.     In  several  ways  it  may  be 
greatly  subservient  to  the  interests  of  Christianity. 

In  the  first  place,  it  may  aid  in  the  defence  of  Christianity 
against  infidelity  and  other  forms  of  error.  It  is  a  significant 
.  fact,  that  very  generally  infidelity  has  been  the  product  of  false 
philosophy  ;  and  in  its  defence  it  has  relied  mainly  upon  the 
systems  from  which  it  sprang.  When,  for  example,  infidels 
advocate  tJw  development  hf/pothesis  against  the  Bible,  and  ap- 
peal for  support  to  the  sciences  of  Astronomy  and  Geology,  the 
telescope  does  good  service  by  demolishing  the  nebular  theory; 
and  Geology  renders  service  no  less  important  by  demonstra- 
ing  creation,  instead  of  development.  When  the  German  meta- 
physics proclaims  pantheism  as  the  grand  result  of  all  its 
inquiries,  and  when  the  French  philosophy  pronounces  mate- 
rialism and  atheism  the  highest  reason,  true  mental  science 
may  greatly  aid  in  the  defence  of  the  doctrines  of  revelation 
against  these  false  systems.  It  is,  indeed,  very  remarkable 
that  of  all  the  sciences,  that  of  the  human  mind  is  the  most 
unsettled ;  and  that  the  study  of  this  science  has  so  commonly 
resulted  in  very  grave  theological  errors,  and  even  in  the  bold- 
est infidelity.  Dr.  Chalmers  was  not  far  from  the  truth,  when 
he  said,  the  main  advantage  of  a  true  metaphysical  formula  is 
"  to  restore  our  confidence  in  the  old  lessons  of  common  sense ; 
old  as  human  nature  itself,  and  which  we  never  had  deserted, 
or  in  which  we  should  never  have  lost  our  confidence,  had  not 
a  perverse  metaphysics  arisen  to  disturb  and  darken  it."  A 
child,  says  he,  "sees  an  apple  on  the  table,  and  afiirms  an 
apple  to  be  there.  A  Berkleian  philosopher  labours  to  disprove 
the  assertion.  A  second  metaphysician  arises  and  repels  the 
sophistry  of  the  first." 

Again — when  men  object  to  the  mf/steries  of  revelation,  and 
contend  that  the  Scriptures  unduly  restrain  reason  in  its  inqui- 
ries after  truth,  true  science  may  expose  the  weakness  of 
these  objections,  by  showing  that  the  mysteries  of  nature  are 
precisely  of  the  same  character  as  those  of  the  Scriptures; 


32 

and  that  in  the  study  of  the  latter,  human  reason  is  no  more 
restraiued, than  in  the  study  of  the  former;  nay — that  both 
are  to  be  studied  on  the  same  principles.  This  is  a  subject  of 
great  interest,  and  a  ver}^  powerful  argument  may  be  deduced 
from  the  mysteries  of  Nature,  as  compared  with  those  of  the 
Scriptures,  in  favor  of  the  inspiration  of  the  latter. 

Science,  in  its  different  departments,  may  afford  many  illus- 
trations and  confirmations  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Bible.  When 
the  inspired  writers  would  fill  the  minds  of  their  readers  with 
reverence  for  the  infinite  ninjesty  of  God,  and  inspire  them 
with  confidence  in  Him,  they  point  then  to  the  vastness  and 
grandeur  of  his  creation.  Eead,  for  example,  the  fortieth  chap- 
ter of  Isaiah.  Every  improvement  which  increases  the  power 
of  the  telescope,  adds  beauty  and  force  to  the  eloquent  lan- 
guage of  the  Prophet,  and  constrains  us  to  feel  that  his  pen 
was  guided  by  that  Spirit  who  garnished  the  heavens,  and 
who  perfectly  knew  the  boundless  extent  of  the  creation  of 
God. 

Again.  To  a  very  great  extent,  the  principles  of  God's 
natural  kingdom  are  identical  with  those  of  his  spiritual  king- 
dom ;  and  the  former  both  illustrate  and  confirm  the  latter. 
"Ye  shall  know  the  truth,"  said  our  Lord,  "  and  the  truth 
shall  make  you  free."  Throughout  the  kingdom  of  nature,  it 
is  truth,  known  and  obeyed,  that  delivers  men  from  the  evils 
and  dangers  to  which  they  are  exposed.  Why  should  not  the 
same  principle  hold  good  in  the  kingdom  of  grace?  "What- 
soever a  man  soweth,"  says  Paul,  "  that  shall  he  also  reap." 
The  principle,  that  the  harvest  is  of  the  same  nature  as  the 
seed  sown,  runs  through  the  entire  government  of  God.  In 
every  department  men  receive  the  legitimate  fruits  of  their 
works.  When  our  Lord  says,  "  Strait  is  the  gate  and  nar- 
row the  way  that  leads'  to  life,"  he  states  a  principle  that  finds 
ten  thousand  confirmations  in  the  history  of  the  world.  One 
who  has  never  investigated  the  subject,  would  be  astonished  at 


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the  extent  to  which  the  laws  of  these  two  kingdoms  arc  iden- 
tical. 

We  are  fjir  from  undervaluing  science  in  any  of  its  depart- 
ments ;  but,  like  every  other  good  thing,  it  is  injurious  when 
misplaced ;  and  the  injury  is  in  proportion  to  its  value  when 
rightly  used.  We  cannot  breathe  water,  nor  drink  air.  Food,  * 
water,  and  air  are  equally  necessary  to  animal  life  ;  but  neither 
of  these  can  be  substituted  for  the  other.  So  science  and  rev- 
elation are  both  necessary  to  the  well — being  of  mankind  ;  but 
neither  of  these  can  take  the  place  of  the  other.  Science  re- 
veals the  objects  and  laws  of  the  kingdom  of  nature  directly 
and  clearly;  the  objects  and  laws  of  the  kingdom  of  grace,  if 
it  reveals  them  at  all,  it  reveals  indirectly  and  very  imperfectly. 
The  Scriptures  reveal  the  latter  directly  and  fully  ;  the  former 
indirectly  and  imperfectly.  To  a  certain  extent,  the  two  vol- 
umes of  Nature  and  Revelation  overlap.  That  is  to  say — the 
inferential  teachings  of  science  extend  into  the  kingdom  of 
morals  and  religion ;  and  the  indirect  teachings  of  the  Scrip- 
tures extend  into  the  kingdom  of  nature.  Now  it  is  just  as 
absurd  to  allow  the  inferential  teachings  of  science,  which  may 
be,  and  often  are  erroneous,  to  control  the  direct  teachings  of 
the  Scriptures,  as  it  is  to  insist  that  the  inferences  of  theolo- 
gians from  the  direct  or  indirect  teachings  of  the  Scriptures, 
shall  control  the  direct  teachings  of  science.  For  example, 
science  teaches  directly,  that  the  sun  is  stationary,  and  that 
the  earth  revolves  around  it.  Would  it  be  wise  in  Christians 
to  deny  this,  because  the  Scriptures  tell  us,  that  Joshua  com- 
manded the  sun  to  stand  still,  and  it  obeyed  him  ?  Very  prop- 
erly the  inspired  historian,  in  narrating  the  facts,  used 
popular  language ;  and  there  is  no  real  discrepancy  between 
astronomy  and  the  Bible.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Scriptures 
teach  us  directly,  that  all  the  human  race  sprang  from  one 
pair.  Shall  we  allow  the  devotees  of  science  to  shake  our 
faith  in  this  truth  by  mere  inferences  from  the  facts  of  physi- 
ology ? 


34 

Again.  The  Scriptures  directly  and  clearly  teach  the  doctrine 
of  original  sin.  Shall  we  allow  metaphysicians,  by  their  specula- 
tions, to  shake  our  faith  in  this  doctrine,  and  to  give  us  in  its 
stead  an  innocent  proclivitij  to  sin  ?  The  Scriptures  teach  us 
directly  that  God  can  control  the  minds  of  his  rational  crea- 
tures, the  good  and  the  evil,  without  interfering  with  their 
moral  agency.  Shall  we  permit  our  faith  in  this  doctrine  to 
be  overthrown  by  modern  metaphysicians,  like  Dr.  Bushnell, 
who  assert  that  God  could  not  create  a  race  of  acountable  be- 
ings who  would  not  certainly  sin  ? 

Why  should  we  bow  so  submissively  to  the  inferential  reas- 
onings of  men  claiming  to  be  philosophers  ?  Have  they  been 
so  generally  in  the  right,  and  have  the  literal  interpretations 
of  the  Bible  been  so  generally  untrue  ?  How  old  is  science  ? 
Which  of  all  the  sciences  has  yet  reached  the  maturity  of 
manhood  ?  How  often  have  its  advocates  reviewed  their  prem- 
ises, and  changed  their  conclusions  ?  And  how  often,  may  they 
yet  be  obliged  to  repeat  this  operation  ?  What  power  was  it 
that  overthrew  the  erroneous  philosophy  of  Plato  and  Aristo- 
tle, and  prepared  the  way  for  a  new  era  in  the  progress  of  hu- 
man knowledge  ?  Was  it  not  the  Bible,  in  the  hands  of  the 
Reformers  of  the  16th  century  ?  And  what  power  is  it  that 
has  conducted  the  sciences  to  their  present  degree  of  matu- 
rity ?  What  has  science  achieved,  where  it  has  not  enjoyed 
the  light  of  Christianity  ?  What  is  it  doing  now  ?  Which  of 
the  four  or  five  systems  of  metaphysics,  now  claiming  our 
homage,  shall  we  receive  as  true  ?  The  well  ascertained  facU 
in  all  the  sciences  we  gladly  receive;  the  inferences  from  those 
facts,  when  they  contradict  the  plain  teachings  of  God's  word, 
we  cannot  admit. 

This  subject  is  one  of  growing  interest.  We  are  entering 
upon  an  age  of  subtle  theorizing  and  bold  speculation.  Too 
self-conceited  to  sit  humbly  by  the  volumes  of  Nature  and 
Revelation,  in  the  character  of  disciples,  learning  their  facts  and 
their  laws,  men  are  beginning  to  repeat  the  folly  of  past  ages, 


35 

by  substituting  theories  for  facts.  The  man  floating  in  his 
balloon,  two  miles  above  the  earth,  may  look  down  contemptu- 
ously upon  the  vulgar  crowd,  who  are  content  to  Avalk  or  ride 
on  terra  Jirma  ;  but  wise  men  pity  his  folly.  Our  theorizers 
are  t^us  floating  aloft.  The  realities  of  things  do  not  compare 
with  their  day  dreams.  As  in  ages  past,  so  it  will  be  again. 
True  science,  as  well  as  true  religion,  will  lose  ground,  just  as 
far  as  this  theorizing  spirit  shall  prevail.  But  as  Chalmers 
said,  we  are  chiefly  concerned  to  see,  that  in  the  midst  of  all 
that  is  unsettled,  our  Theology  is  safe. 

We  take  fair  ground.  Let  science  be  supreme  in  its  own 
domain;  but  let  it  not  attempt  more  than  it  can  perform.  Its 
ascertained /^/cAs,  and  the  Icms  those  facts  reveal,  we  admit  and 
appreciate.  But  in  the  higher  department  of  religion  and 
morals,  ''  let  God  be  true,  and  every  man  a  liar."  Ills  plain 
declarations  infinitely  outweigh  the  doubtful  inferences  of  falli- 
ble ]»hilosophy. 

These  views  will  indicate  the  method  of  instruction  I  propose 
to  adopt  in  the  responsible  position  assigned  me  in  this  School 
of  the  Prophets. 

1.  I  shall  endeavour  to  demonstrate,  against  all  infidels  and 
semi-infidels,  the  plenary  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures. 

2.  We  shall  try  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  the  great  Teacher,  listen 
to  his  words,  and  interpret  them  according  to  the  established 
laws  of  language,  praying  for  that  Divine  illumination  without 
which  none  can  rightly  understand  the  truths  of  the  inspired 
Volume,  see  their  beauty,  and  feel  their  power.  We  shall  test 
every  doctrine  by  this  perfect  rule;  and  every  moral  principle 
and  every  proposed  reform,  we  shall  try  in  the  same  way.  It 
shall  be  my  constant  aim  to  impress  upon  the  minds  of  candi- 
dates for  the  ministry,  that  they  must  go  to  the  Word  of  God, 
not  as  philosophers,  but  as  disciples;  not  to  show  to  how  great 
extent  human  reason  is  independent  of  Divine  teaching,  but 
to  submit  the  understanding  implicitly  to  "the  wisdom  that 
cometh  from  above."     As  in  the  teaching  of  the  inspired  Paul, 


36 

so  in  ours,  the  cross  of  Christ  shall  ever  stand  in  the  centre 
of  our  system  of  ftiith,  pouring  its  light  and  heat  upon  all  the 
doctrines  and  truths  of  the  Scriptures,  as  the  sun  illumines 
and  warms  the  planets  that  revolve  around  it. 

3.  I  shall  ever  seek  to  impress  upon  their  minds  the  great 
importance  of  confirming  all  their  instructions,  when  they  enter 
upon  their  official  work,  by  abundant  quotations  of  the  language 
of  the  Scriptures;  that  their  discourses  thus  enriched,  may 
come  home  to  the  consciences  and  hearts  of  men,  backed  by  the 
authority  of  God,  whose  ministers  they  are. 

4.  It  shall  be  my  aim  to  make  them  acquainted  with  the 
different  forms  of  error,  especially  with  those  prevalent  in  the 
fields  in  which  they  may  be  called  to  labour,  and  with  the 
best  methods  of  stating  and  defending  the  doctrines  of  the 
Gospel.  Then,  if  called  to  an  open  issue  with  any  of  these 
forms  of  error,  they  may  wield  "the  Sword  of  the  Spirit" 
skilfully  and  effectively;  if  not,  they  may  know  how  so  to 
direct  their  ordinary  preaching,  as  to  render  controversy  un- 
necessary. 

5.  I  shall  teach  them,  as  far  as  possible,  to  use  every  de- 
partment of  human  knowledge  in  illustrating  and  defending  the 
truths  of  the  Gospel. 

But  "who  is  sufficient  for  these  things?"  In  the  most 
favourable  circumstances,  the  work  of  the  Christian  ministry  is 
one  environed  with  difficulties  and  discouragements,  and  in- 
volving fearful  responsibilities.  In  every  department  of  it  the 
interests  of  both  time  and  eternity  are  involved.  But  in  such 
a  day  as  this,  and  in  view  of  the  vast  changes  that  must  soon 
occur  in  the  world,  attended  with  unparalleled  excitements  and 
agitations,  how  much  are  both  the  difficulties  and  the  respon- 
sibilities of  the  work  increased!  And  how  much  greater  the 
difficulty  and  the  responsibility  attending  the  training  of  those 
called  of  God  to  take  part  in  this  conflict !  The  standard  of 
ministerial  qualification  needs  to  be  greatly  elevated.  The 
Church  and  the  world  now  especially  need  ministers  who  know 


37 

how  to  "  preach  the  word"  in  its  purity,  and  who  are  not  afraid 
to  do  it — men  who  know  how  to  address  the  masses  oC  tlie 
people,  so  as  both  to  instruct  and  interest  them.  Were  1  not 
convinced,  that  in  entering  upon  this  work,  I  but  obey  the 
call  of  God  through  his  Church,  I  would  not  dare  to  touch  it. 
But  I  would  fain  adopt  the  language  of  the  Apostle  of  the 
Gentiles,  and  say,  "I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ,  which 
strengtheneth  me."  I  thank  God  that  in  laying  the  foundations 
of  this  important  Institution,  I  have  associates,  whose  eminent 
qualifications  will,  in  some  measure,  compensate  for  my  defi- 
ciencies. To  Ilim  whose  servants  we  are,  and  at  whose  call 
we  are  entering  upon  these  labours,  we  humbly  and  prayerfully 
commit  the  destinies  of  this  School  of  the  Prophets. 


./    -< 


'ilu,-'  S  Wafners  li'k  ?■"■  Hjlds-u  r-PMad^ 


^^c-^^^Y  ^^^^ 


Professor  rjf  BiMicalani  (  Ecclesiasiical  History. 

PalUsJieS.  by  Joseph.  MMilson.  J^Jll  Scruih  JO^^Sf  Fhxl'^ 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS 

BY 

WILLIS    LORD,    D.  D., 

PROFESSOR   OF  BIBLICAL  AND   ECCLESIASTICAL   HISTORY. 

(39) 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  OF  WILLIS  LORD. 


Fathers  and  Brethren — It  is  a  great  and  sacred  work  to 
train  Pastors  and  Teachers  for  the  Church  of  God.  When  I 
think  how  great  and  sacred,  I  marvel  that  any  part  in  it  should 
have  been  committed  to  me.  Certainly,  I  did  not  seek  it. 
Neither  did  1  desire  it.  I  had  not  a  thought  even,  in  reference 
to  it,  as  a  personal  matter.  Had  I  known  beforehand  of  any 
purpose  to  put  this  work  upon  me,  I  should  have  shunned  it. 
I  undertake  it  now  from  a  deep  sense  of  duty;  because,  by 
various  and  clear  indications  it  seems  to  be  the  will  of  God. 

In  founding  this  new  School  of  the  Prophets,  and  arranging 
its  offices  of  instruction,  it  pleased  the  venerable  Assembly  of 
the  Church  to  place  me  in  the  chair  of  Biblical  and  Ecclesiastical 
Hisiory.  The  general  subject,  therefore,  of  the  present  Ad- 
dress is  not  optional.  It  is  determined  by  the  nature  of  the 
duties  I  am  called  to  perform,  and  by  this  solemn  service  of 
inauguration. 

History,  in  its  simplest  form,  is  the  record  of  events  or 
fiicts.  Indeed,  in  every  form,  these  must  constitute  its  essen- 
tial matter — its  warp  and  woof.  Theories,  however  ingenious, 
and  speculations,  however  brilHant  or  profound,  are  of  little 
worth,  without  a  basis  of  clear  and  soKd  truth.     But,  neither 

6  (41) 


42 

do  isolated  and  indigested  facts  meet  our  wants.     In  order  to 
utility,  there  must  be  method  and  classification. 

History  assumes  a  scientific  character  and  aspect,  when  its 
fjicts  are  presented  in  due  order,  and  a  pervading  intelligence 
exhibits  their  causes,  relations,  and  results.  It  becomes  then 
not  only  interesting,  but  also  instructive.  Yesterday  is  the 
monitor  and.  teacher  of  to-day.  The  Past  imparts  the  treasures 
of  its  experience  and  wisdom,  for  the  use  and  benefit  of  the 
Present.  Each  successive  age  transmits  its  accumulated  and 
various  wealth  to  the  ages  coming. 

But  a  higher  view  enters  into  the  right  conception  of  History, 
and  is  necessary  to  its  completeness.  In  the  course  and  con- 
flict of  earthly  and  heavenly  things,  above  human  means  and 
ends,  are  the  divine;  above  every  created  actor,  is  God.  His 
presence  pervades  all  space.  His  power  controls  all  being. 
His  purposes  embrace  all  events.  His  eternal  providence 
presides  over  insects  and  angels,  invisible  atoms  and  im- 
measurable worlds.  It  is  the  dictate  of  reason,  as  well  as  the 
averment  of  the  Bible.  Philosophy  requires  that  it  should  be 
so,  equally  with  Faith.  The  most  unimportant  page,  there- 
fore, in  even  secular  annals,  cannot  be  read  in  its  true  light, 
or  understood  in  its  full  import,  apart  from  the  plan  and  pur- 
pose of  Him,  who  "hath  prepared  his  throne  in  the  heavens," 
and  "whose  kingdom  ruleth  over  all."  History,  without  God, 
is  chaos. 

BibUcal  History  has  its  name,  not  from  its  subject,  but  from 
its  source.  It  does  not  treat  of  the  Bible,  its  language,  text, 
manuscripts,  versions,  criticism,  or  the  laws  of  its  interpretation, 
except  incidentally ;  but,  it  is  recorded  in  it,  and  is  drawn  from  it. 
With  the  truth  and  power  of  the  divine  pen,  it  presents,  as  its 
central  and  main  theme,  the  Apostasy  and  the  Redemption, 
the  People  and  Kingdom  of  God,  their  beginning,  character, 
course,  trials,  and  triumphs;  interweaving  with  this  distinctive 
and  pervading  element,  those  collateral  and  subsidiary  matters 
which  result  from  the  inevitable  contact  and  implication  of 


43 

sacred  with  secular  thinf^s.     Its  starting  point  is  the  Creation. 
In  that,  the  work  of  God   is   perfect.     It  narrates  then  the 
Temptation  and  the  Fall.     In  these,  the  perfect  work  of  God 
is  destroyed.     But  amidst  this  dread  ruin,  it  reveals  the  pre- 
sence of  One  who  is  greater  than  Satan.     It  is  llis  puri)ose  to 
redeem  and  restore.     Grace,  therefore,  mingles  with  justice, 
and  invests  the  divine  government  with  new  and  wondrous 
'  features.     It  bestows  upon  Man,  what  is  withheld  from  Angels. 
Among  the  very  desolations  of  Eden,  there   is   the  promise 
of  a  Deliverer.     That  promise  awakens  hope  and  joy  in  Adam. 
It  is  the  germ  of  all  subsequent  revelation,  the  ground  of 
all   subsequent    spiritual   life,   power,   and   achievment.      It 
wrought  the  faith  of  Abel,  the  translation  of  Enoch,  the  right- 
eousness of  Noah.     That  dispensation  closed,  indeed,  with  a 
terrific    judgment;    but   the    Church    survived    the    Deluge. 
Faith  rebuilt  its  altar  on  Ararat,  linking  thus  the  world  that 
was,  with  the  world  that  is;   and  thence  began  new  and  dis- 
tincter  manifestations  of  the  plan  of  God  in  Redemption.     We 
see  them  in  the  Confusion  of  Tongues  and  the  Dispersion  of 
Mankind;  in  the  Call  of  Abraham  and  the  Covenant  with  him 
and  his  Seed;  in  the  Oppression  and  the  Wonders  in  Egypt; 
in  the  Discipline  of  the  Wilderness;  in  the  Institutions  of  the 
Law;  the  Conquest  of  Canaan,  the  Government  of  the  Judges 
and  Kings,  the  Captivity  in  Babylon,  and  in  the  whole  course 
and  condition  of  the  chosen  people,  until  the  succession  of  the 
Prophets  and  the  Spirit  of  Inspiration  ceased  with  Malachi. 
Through  all  this  period,  and   amidst  whatever  changes,  in  the 
light  of  Biblical  History,  we  trace  the  divine  purpose,  not  only 
in  unbroken  continuity,  but  also  in  constant  progress  towards 
that  stupendous  consummation,  with  which  the  Ages  were  in 
travail,  God  in  Bethlehem !     God  on  Calvary ! 

Ecclesiastical  History  differs  from  Biblical  in  this — that 
while  its  subject  is  sacred,  its  sources  are  human.  It  treats 
indeed  of  the  Church  of  God ;  but  its  witnesses  and  writers 
are  men.     It  traverses  too  a  later  period  in  the  course  of  time. 


44 

It  begins  where  the  inspired  page  is  about  to  end.  With  the 
exception  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles — whose  historical  value 
is  immense — and  a  few  incidental  passages  in  the  Apostolic 
letters,  it  depends  wholly  on  records  and  monuments,  made  by 
successive  generations  since  the  beloved  John  died.  Its  main 
features  however  are  authentic ;  its  great  facts,  certain.  On  the 
closure  of  the  Old  Econom}^,  the  Church  is  a  "  little  flock." 
But  the  gospel  is  preached,  the  Spirit  is  given,  and  converts 
are  multiplied.  The  scenes  of  Pentecost  continue.  People 
and  priests  become  obedient  to  the  faith.  Gentiles  as  well  as 
Jews  are  gathered  in ;  Cornelius  as  well  as  Saul.  Success 
awakens  hostility.  Judaism  arrays  its  forces.  Paganism  is 
roused  to  resistance.  Persecution  kindles  its  fire,  and  whets 
its  sword.  Heresy  begins  its  invasion.  Who  can  fittingly  de- 
scribe the  conflict  ?  Who  can  duly  estimate  its  surpassing  mo- 
ment? But  truth  is  mightier  than  error.  God  is  stronger  than 
men.  In  three  centuries  the  Church  triumphs.  The  Emperor 
of  the  world  becomes  the  servant  of  Jesus  Christ.  Then  fol- 
low the  perils  of  prosperity.  Then  are  made,  by  gradual  steps, 
those  wider  and  bolder  departures  from  the  primitive  form  and 
faith,  which,  at  length,  result  in  the  claim  of  the  harlot  to  be 
the  bride  of  Christ,  and  in  the  casting  out  of  his  true  wedded 
wife,  to  seek  for  refuge  among  the  crags  of  the  mountains  and 
in  the  dens  of  the  desert.  And  yet,  the  Church  was  not  then 
extinct,  nor  did  the  promise  of  God  fail.  Through  all  those 
mournful  ages,  the  pure  stream  of  truth  flowed  on,  the  succession 
of  faithful  witnesses  was  maintained,  real  piety  lived  and  flour- 
ished, sometimes  even  beneath  cowls  and  in  monasteries,  as 
well  as  among  those  who  utterly  abjured  them  both.  It  was 
an  English  priest,  who  first  gave  the  people  the  New  Testa- 
ment, in  their  own  mother  tongue.  It  was  a  German  monk 
whom  God  mainly  used  in  that  mighty  upheaval  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  which  we  call  the  Reformation,  that  glorious 
work  of  demolition  and  reconstruction  which  restored  to  such 
an  extent  the  Apostolic  faith  and  Church,  and  whose  beneficent 


45 

influences  pervadinp;  tlic  nations,  have  roused  and  sharpened 
their  mental  and  moral  life,  stimulated  invention,  agriculture, 
commerce,  and  the  arts,  and  made  our  age  pre-eminently  the 
age  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  and  power. 

But  from  this  general  view,  suggested  thus  by  the  terms 
which  designate  our  oflice  and  work,  let  us  turn  to  some  par- 
ticulars concerning  the  Church,  in  which  history  instructs  us, 
and  which  may  serve  as  specimens,  to  show  the  interest  and 
importance  of  its  stud}',  especiall}^  to  those  who  would  minis- 
ter in  the  Sanctuary,  and  guide  the  hosts  of  God  along  their 
way  to  victory  and  heaven. 

History  discloses  the  Divine  origin  of  the  Church.  It  is  not 
of  men,  but  of  God.  We  might  perhaps  have  argued  this  from 
its  manifest  character  and  end  as  compared  with  any  human 
institution  ;  but  W'e  have  the  explicit  record.  God  devised 
and  created  it.  Its  ground  and  charter  were  germinally  in 
that  first  promise.  It  became  real  and  visible  in  the  trusting 
and  active  faith  of  Abel,  perhaps  of  Adam.  That  promise  was 
the  blossom  of  God's  grace ;  that  faith  awoke  and  put  on  its 
marvellous  strength  and  beauty,  at  God's  secret  call,  and  be- 
cause of  God's  internal  and  efficacious  work.  As  signally 
then,  as  in  any  instance  of  Divine  life  since,  was  it  true — "  Not 
by  might,  nor  by  power,  but  by  my  Spirit,  saith  the  Lord  of 
Hosts."  The  Church  so  begun,  w\as  continued  by  the  acces- 
sion of  others,  through  the  working  of  the  same  grace,  and 
the  manifestation  of  a  like  faith.  All  the  saints  before  the 
flood,  whether  numerous  or  few,  and  whatever  the  form  of 
their  association  or  the  order  of  their  worship,  were  the  fold, 
the  family,  the  house,  the  Church  of  God. 

When  after  that  memorable  event,  a  new  and  clearer  devel- 
opment of  the  Divine  purpose,  as  touching  the  Church,  was  to 
be  made,  God  was  still  present.  The  call  of  Abraham  was  a 
Divine  call.  The  covenant  with  him  and  his  seed  was  a  Di- 
vine covenant.  The  promises,  which  within  that  covenant  wei'e 
as  living  fountains  of  strength  and  refreshment;  to  many  gene- 


46 

rations,  were  Divine  promises.  Moses,  the  great  legislator  of 
the  Church,  was  the  servant  of  God.  Elijah,  the  stern  reform- 
er of  the  Church,  came  in  the  strength  of  God.  David,  the 
sweet  psalmist  of  the  Church,  sung  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 
Isaiah,  and  all  the  holy  Prophets  of  the  Church,  spoke  in  the 
name  of  God.  And<3f  the  Church  of  that  dispensation,  though 
indeed  belonging  essentially  to  all  dispensations,  it  was,  that 
God  himself  said,  "This  is  my  rest  forever,  here  willl  dwell." 
And  still  later,  when  at  length  the  legal  and  typical  economy 
passed  away,  because  He  had  come  who  was  the  substance  of 
all  types,  and  the  perfect  fulfiller  of  the  Law,  and  when  there- 
fore the  form  and  order  of  the  Church  were  to  be  further  and 
materially  changed,  it  was  at  the  command,  or  by  the  graciously 
present  Spirit,  of  its  glorious  Head.  The  commission  of  the 
Apostles  was  a  Divine  commission.  The  truths  they  preached 
were  Divine  truths.  The  laws  they  enacted  were  Divine  laws. 
The  powers,  by  which  they  vindicated  their  claims  and  wrought 
conviction  and  obedience  among  Gentiles  and  Jews,  were 
Divine  powers.  And  as  the  narrative  of  their  work  and  teach- 
ing flows  on,  the  pregnant  phrase  continually  recurs,  "the  Church 
of  God,"  "the  Church  of  God,"  implying  not  only  his  presence 
in  it,  and  his  jurisdiction  over  it,  but  also  its  origin  and  its  con- 
tinued life  in  him  and  by  him.  And  then,  when  the  sacred  word 
is  about  to  close,  and  the  Church,  the  Bride,  the  Lamb's  wife, 
passes  before  the  vision  of  the  entranced  Prophet,  s3'mbolized 
by  a  city  of  great  extent  and  inefffible  beauty  and  glory,  that 
city  comes  down  out  of  heaven,  and  is  the  City  of  God. 

God  then  devised  and  created  the  Church.  He  laid  its 
foundation,  and  will  rear  its  pinnacles.  And  he  devised  it  and 
brought  it  into  visible  existence  and  operation,  not  only  as  the 
school  and  home  where  he  might  best  train  his  children  for 
r their  work  on  earth  and  their  rest  in  heaven,  but  also  as  the 
chief  instrument  of  his  wisdom  and  power  in  combating  sin 
and  destroying  the  works  of  the  devil.  Its  characteristic 
idea  is  that  of  a  selection  out  of,  and  a  separation  from,  the 


47 

earthl}'  and  corrupt  mass;  to  be  indeed  a  heavenly  society,  but 
to  be  also  a  heavenly  power,  re-acting  on  that  mass,  and  per- 
vading and  transforming  it  to  such  extent  as  God  wills;  and 
whether  in  the  one  view  or  the  other,  there  is  no  device  or 
creation  of  men  like  it.  Those  restless  or  ambitious  spirits 
w'ho  seek  to  cast  out  Satan  and  renew  the  social  and  moral 
world,  by  antagonistic  or  even  independent  means,  betray  as 
profound  folly  as  they  do  irreverence.  They  labour  in  vain 
and  spend  their  strength  for  naught.  It  is  not  indeed  the  mere 
organism  which  quickens  and  regenerates,  but  it  is  the  ever- 
living  and  Almighty  Spirit,  who  dwells  in  that  organism  and 
works  by  it.  The  Church  is  the  device  of  Divine  wisdom,  the 
depository  of  Divine  truth,  the  channel  of  Divine  grace,  the  im- 
plement of  Divine  power,  the  earthly  abode  of  the  Divine  pre- 
sence. To  the  Church  pertain  "  the  adoption,  and  the  glory,  and 
the  covenants,  and  the  giving  of  the  law,  and  the  service  of 
God,  and  the  promises."  This  is  her  exclusive  distinction.  It 
is  the  living  source  of  her  efficiency.  "What  shall  one  then 
answer  the  messengers  of  the  nation?  That  the  Lord  hath 
founded  Zion,  and  the  poor  of  his  people  shall  trust  in  it."  In 
the  sense  of  the  ancient  symbol,  "  I  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  the  Holy  Catholic  Church." 

History  further  attests  the  constant  and  firm  faith  of  the 
Church.  The  Church  has  a  faith.  She  is  no  creedless  thing. 
In  every  age,  and  with  deep  emphasis,  she  has  said,  I  believe. 
And  to  instruct  and  confirm  her  children,  at  every  now  and 
then,  she  has  drawn  out  her  sense  of  Scripture,  that  only  per- 
fect and  infallible  rule,  in  clear  and  logical  compends,  or  well 
considered  Confessions;  but  whether  in  that  or  these,  it  is 
"  one  faith;"  it  is  '4he  faith  of  God's  elect;"  it  is  "the  faith 
"delivered"  by  God  whose  Oracles  they  are.  And  observe  that 
apostolic  word.  It  discriminates  and  so  instructs.  Not  in- 
vented by  Philosophy.  Not  discovered  by  Science.  Not 
elaborated  by  any  process  or  power  of  the  human  mind,  but 


48 

"delivered"  from  above.  Indeed  how  else  could  itbe?  ADivine 
faith  necessitates  a  Divine  revelation.  In  such  a  matter, 
Nature  is  deficient,  human  wit  and  reason  fail.  There  must 
be  the  supernatural.  Its  entire  absence  from  the  faith  and 
history  of  the  Church,  would  prove  them  not  Divine.  In  the 
face  then  of  all  current  atheism,  vulgar  and  refined,  we  avow 
and  exult  in  this  that,  as  a  system  of  truth  as  well  as  a  spiritual 
experience,  our  "faith  stands,  not  in  the  wisdom  of  men,  but 
in  the  power  of  God." 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  soon  this  faith  began  to  be 
"delivered;"  how  early  the  Church  had  it;  not  indeed,  in  ab- 
stract and  scientific  statements,  but  in  the  concrete,  in  living 
and  speaking  facts.     Turn  to  the  pages  of  Genesis.     Is  there 
a  God,  do  you  ask?  Men  reason.     They  infer  causes  from  ef- 
fects, and  thus  reach  the   First  Cause.     The  Bible  does  not 
reason,  it  declares,  "God   created  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 
Is  there  an  Almighty  Spirit?     Men   hesitate.     They  consult 
analogies.     Our  being  is  complex.     Perhaps  God's  being  is  so. 
The  Bible  neither  consults  nor  hesitates,  it  again  declares,  "  The 
Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters."     Is  there 
a  Trinity  in  the  Godhead  ?     How  profound  the  silence  which 
seals  mortal  lips  !    And  yet  that  supreme  mystery  is  at  least 
intimated  when  the  narrative  adds,  "  Blohim  said.  Let  us  make 
man  in  our  image."     Is  sin  in  question — its  fact  or  its  relation  ? 
Read  that  story  of  the  fall,  and  that  sentence  on  our  trembling 
parents.     How  certain  their  guilt !  how  wide  and  disastrous 
its  reach!     Is   there  a  Redeemer?     Hearken,  thou  who  art 
lost !     "  The  Seed  of  the  woman  shall  bruise   the   Serpent's 
head."     Not  at  once,  indeed,  is  understood  the  full  import  rf)f 
these  prophetic  and  assuring  words,  but  there  is  light  in  them 
and  eternal   life.     Is  salvation  by  faith?     Come  with   me  to 
that  altar  where  Abel  worships.     Hear  him  as  he  cries,  "  0 
Lamb  of  God,  through  thy  precious  blood,  prefigured  b}'  the 
blood  of  this  lamb,  save  me!"     Does  God  choose  whom  he 
will  to  be  the  heirs  of  his  grace?     Mark  yonder  heroic  exile 


49 

from  among  the  idolaters  of  Chaklea.  He  alone  is  called  of 
God,  and  becorues  the  Father  of  the  faithful.  Will  God  pre- 
serve the  real  Christian  and  the  true  Church  amidst  whatever 
perils?  See  that  wondrous  sight  on  Iloreb,  the  symbolic 
bush,  burning,  yet  unconsumed.  Will  the  dead  live  again  ? 
Behold  the  sacrifice  on  Moriah.  The  Patriarch  binds  the  be- 
loved victim,  and  prepares  the  flital  blow,  "accounting  that 
God  is  able  to  raise  him  up,  even  from  the  dead  !"  Is  there 
a  Judgment  to  come?  How  clear  and  startling  is  this  voice 
from  Enoch,  ''  Behold  the  Lord  cometh  with  ten  thousand  of 
his  saints,  to  execute  judgment  upon  all!" 

In  this  manner,  God,  from  the  beginning,  "  delivered"  the 
faith,  not  to  the   philosophers,  but  "  the  saints  j"  not  to  the 
Academy,  but  the  Church.  The  Church  with  reverence  received 
it,  with  affection  preserved  it,  with  fidelity  transmitted  it.    It 
gathered  precision  and  fulness,  by  time.     So  God  wisely  pur- 
posed.    What  at  first  was  obscure  became  gradually  clearer. 
What  was  imperfect  was  made  more  and  more  complete.     In 
its  initial  stage,  it  spread  saving  knowledge  through  the  ante- 
diluvian   period.      With  still  stronger  rays,  it  shone  on  the 
tents  and  hallowed  the  altars  of  the  Patriarchs.     In  the  signi- 
ficant forms  and  ceremonies  of  the  law,  it  had  a  distincter  and 
more  impressive  exhibition.     The  pages  of  the  Prophets  glow 
with  its  splendor,  and  almost  anticipate  the  completed   revela- 
tions of  the  gospel.     With  new  elements  of  light  and  power, 
it  passes  over  into  the  records  and  the  Church  of  the  New 
Testament,  being  witnessed  through  Evangelists  and  Apostles, 
by  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  it  remains  to-day  in  the  original  doc- 
uments most  wonderfully  preserved,  and  in  venerable  symbols, 
like  those  of  Dort  and  Westminster,  the  sacred  and  priceless 
possession  of  the  household  of  God. 

There  have  been  indeed  sad  departures  from  the  faith  ;  there 
have  been  multiplied  corruptions  of  it,  by  individuals  and  by 
sects.  All  history  is  defiled  with,  and  groans  under,  the  de- 
posits of  error.     And  yet  from  this  sore  evil  God  has  educed 


50 

good.  Error  has  been  the  means  of  defining  the  truth  more 
clearly,  of  eliminating  from  it  all  foreign  mixtures,  of  bring- 
ing it  out  in  bolder  relief,  and  throwing  around  it  ampler  and 
impregnable  defences.  That  memorable  misconception  of  the 
gift  of  Grod  by  Simon  Magus  prompted  the  equally  memorable 
rebuke  and  correction  of  it  by  Simon  Peter.  Judaizing  at- 
tempts on  the  one  hand,  and  philosophical  pretensions  on  the 
other,  gave  greater  point  and  power  to  the  preaching  and  let- 
ters of  Paul.  The  ambition  of  Diotrephes  and  the  impiety  of 
Cerinthus  redoubled  the  pleas  for  humility  in  Christians,  and 
the  proofs  of  Godhead  in  Christ,  from  the  lips  and  the  pen  of 
John.  The  advancing  shadow  of  Gnosticism  impelled  both 
these  great  Apostles  to  contend  more  earnestly  for  that  gnosis 
which  alone  is  real  and  true.  The  slanderous  assaults  of  the 
Pagan  adversaries,  called  forth  the  noble  defences  of  the  early 
Christian  Apologists.  Arianism  aroused  the  uncompromising 
orthodoxy  of  Athanasius.  The  Pelagian  heresy  gave  rise  to 
the  profound  and  masterly  vindications  and  expositions  of 
Augustine.  The  culmination  of  the  errors  and  abuses  of  the 
Papacy  under  Leo,  brought  on,  by  an  almost  inevitable  reaction, 
the  Reformation  under  Luther.  And  to  instance  now  no  fur- 
ther, the  plausible  but  impious  Naturalism  of  the  present,  in- 
sinuating itself  through  Magazines  and  desecrating  even  Pulpits, 
is  filling  the  true  sons  of  God  with  a  deeper  love  and  holier 
ardour  for  the  long  tried  and  imperishable  faith  of  the  Church. 

And  in  its  faithful  record  of  error,  in  giving  its  genesis  and 
development,  its  forms  and  fruits,  how  great  a  boon  does  His- 
tory confer  !  "What  an  illustration  too  that  "  there  is  nothing 
new  under  the  sun  !"  The  human  mind  seems  to  move  in  a 
circle.  It  seems  especially  to  run  the  round  of  its  deviations 
from  truth,  in  stated  periods ;  and  then  to  repeat  the  revolu- 
tion. The  multiplied  isms  of  to-day,  however  novel  they  ma}^ 
seem,  are  not  new  truths,  but  old  falsehoods.  They  lived  in 
the  same  or  kindred  forms,  bore  their  proper  fruit,  died  and 
were  buried  perhaps  centuries  ago.     And  those  vain  men  who 


f 


51 

father  them,  and  would  fain  be  thought  original  or  profound 
thinkers  because  of  them,  have  no  such  merit  at  all.  They 
have  simpl}'-  been  opening  some  ancient  graves,  and  evoking 
the  dead,  presently  to  die  again.  Is  it  Humanitarianism,  or 
Transcendentalism,  or  Pantheism,  or  Formalism,  or  Spiritual- 
ism, or  Anti-Scripturism  of  any  sort  ?  To  History  it  is  an 
old  acquaintance.  Somewhere  in  its  course  along  the  ages, 
History  has  seen  it  before.  History  knows  its  character  and 
pedigree.  History  exposes  and  refutes  its  pretensions.  His- 
tor}^  bids  men  beware  of  its  influence  and  to  remand  it  with 
due  promptness  to  its  forsaken  sepulchre.  Truth  alone  is  in- 
stinct with  immortal  life  and  beauty. 

History,  moreover,  brings  us  into  contact  and  sympathy 
with  the  great  Teachers  of  the  Church.  Ignorance  is  not  the 
mother  of  devotion.  An  intelligent  piety  will  be  more  apt  to 
be  both  spiritual  and  efficient.  The  material  creation  began 
with  light.  It  is  no  less  the  case  when  God  begins  the  new 
creation  of  a  soul  in  Christ.  What  begins  in  light,  as  the  very 
condition  and  means  of  its  existence,  cannot  be  expected  to 
thrive  in  darkness.  It  were  a  reversing  of  primary  law,  and 
of  nature  itself.  The  evangelic  command  therefore  is,  Grow 
in  knowledge  as  well  as  grace.  It  presses  on  the  individual 
Christian,  and  on  the  collective  body  of  believers.  How  else 
can  the  Church  realize  the  Divine  purpose  as  to  its  own  char- 
acter, or  become  God's  great  Institute  of  instruction  to  the 
world  ?  And  yet  this  is  her  mission.  "  Go  ye  therefore," 
said  Jesus  as  he  left  his  cross  for  his  throne,  "and  teach  all 
nations."  And  he  added  thus  no  new  function  to  the  Church, 
but  only  enlarged  the  sphere  of  her  operation. 

The  supreme  Teacher  was  Jesus  Christ,  aforetime  as  the 
Angel  of  the  Covenant,  under  various  Divine  appearances;  in 
these  last  days  as  the  seed  of  the  woman,  in  the  form  of  a 
servant ;  and  both  then  and  now,  by  his  Spirit  also,  as  well  as 
in  person.  The  Prophets  were  his  ministers  and  bore  his  mes- 
sages.    The  Apostles  sat  at  his  feet,  and  taught  only  in  his 


52 

name.  How  adminible,  hence,  the  historical  skill  and  legisla- 
tive wisdom  of  Moses!  How  rich  and  various  the  spiritual 
treasures  of  Asaph  and  David  !  How  grand  and  stirring  the 
predictive  strains  of  Isaiah  and  his  gifted  associates  !  How 
beautiful,  too,  for  simplicity  are  the  Gospels  !  How  earnest 
and  practical  the  exhortations  of  Peter  !  How  glowing  and  re- 
sistless the  arguments  of  Paul !  How  childlike  and  yet  pro- 
found the  sentences  of  John  !  And  when  you  gather  into  one 
the  writings  of  Apostles  and  Prophets,  the  teaching  of  Christ 
in  his  own  person,  and  the  teaching  of  Christ  by  his  inspired 
servants,  what  other  volume  is  like  it  ?  How  vast  and  perfect 
its  truth  !     How  incomparable  its  wisdom  and  power  ! 

In  passing  from  the  Scriptures  to  the  Fathers,  we  do  indeed 
make  a  long  descent ;  we  leave  the  Divine  and  consciously  en- 
ter the  human.  The  difference  between  them  is  so  palpable 
and  great,  as  to  afford  itself  an  impressive  argument  for  the  su- 
pernatural source  of  the  Bible.  And  yet,  in  the  Fathers,  there 
are  grains  of  fine  wheat,  and  particles  of  pure  gold.  Clemens, 
Ignatius,  Polycarp,  and  Justin  Martyr,  yield  now  and  then  a 
senten<3e  or  thought  not  unworthy  of  preservation.  We  find 
a  higher  order  of  intellect,  as  well  as  a  wider  reach  of  attain- 
ment, in  the  philosophical  Clement  of  Alexandria,  the  pro- 
foundly erudite  but  fanciful  Origen,  and  the  fervid  and  imagi- 
native Tertuliian.  They  were  the  master  spirits  of  their  age. 
Then  follow  tiie  churchly  Cyprian,  who,  notwithstanding,  loved 
Christ,  and  won  a  martyr's  crown ;  the  oratorical  Lactantius, 
who  has  been  called  the  Christian  Cicero ;  the  bold  and  in- 
tense Athanasius,  whose  w^atch  cry  in  the  Arian  conflict  was, 
"  Earth  has  no  Saviour,  if  its  Saviour  be  not  God  ;"  Ambrose 
also,  in  the  West,  wkomMilman  characterizes  as  "  the  spiritual 
.ancestor  of  the  Hildebrands and  Innocents;"  and  Basil  and  the 
■Gregories,  in  the  East,  who,  with  some  grave  blemishes,  belong- 
ing rather  to  the  times  than  the  men,  united  some  eminent 
merits,  which  have  been  the  admiration  of  all  times.  Still  su- 
perior to  these  was  Jerome,  the  great  Scholar  of  the  Church, 


63 

whom  Niebuhr  calls  a  "  giant,"  and  describes  his  works,  except- 
ing the  critical,  as  disclosing  "  animation,  elasticity  of  mind, 
learning  to  an  immense  extent,  and  wit,  which  continues  till 
his  old  age,  and  constitutes  the  predominant  feature  of  his 
character;"  the  golden-mouthed  Chrysostom,  the  great  Preach- 
er of  the  Church,  whose  marvellous  eloquence,  usually  ground- 
ed on  evangelic  truth,  swayed  the  vast  assemblies  of  Antioch 
and  Constantinople  as  the  wind  does  the  forests,  and  around 
whose  memory  a  charm  and  fragrance  linger,  which  fifteen 
centuries  have  not  been  able  to  dispel;  and  Augustine,  the 
great  Theologian  of  the  Church,  of  a  prodigious  grasp  of  in- 
tellect, "  in  whom,  Paul  lived  again ;"  whom  Luther  thought 
"the  ablest  and  purest  of  all  the  Doctors;"  whom  even  Dr. 
Piisey  recommends  as  "  one  in  whom  the  stream  of  Catholic 
truth  flowed  strong  and  deep," although  predestinarian  sticks 
and  straws  do  sometimes  intermingle,  and  whose  influence 
on  his  own  and  all  subsequent  ages,  as  touching  Theology, 
has  doubtless  been  greater  than  that  of  any  other  uninspired 
man. 

But  1  must  desist  from  even  these  glances,  and  wholly 
passing  media3val  times  and  medireval  men,  (some  of  whom 
were  truly  great,  as  Anselm  and  Bernard,)  be  content,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  later  teachers  of  the  Church,  just  to  mention  the 
impetuous  zeal  of  Luther,  the  gentle  strength  of  Melanchthon, 
the  invincible  logic  of  Calvin,  the  stern  intrepidity  of  Knox, 
the  rich  f\incy  of  Taylor,  the  calm  depth  of  Ilowe,  the  exhaus- 
tive power  of  Owen,  the  heavenly  fervour  of  Baxter,  the  sen- 
tentious and  pungent  style  of  Wesley,  and  the  metaphysical 
force  and  deep  spiritual  insight  of  Edwards.  It  is  indeed  an 
illustrious  company,  and  sacred  as  illustrious.  They  were  all 
endowed  with  eminent  gifts.  They  all  loved  the  one  personal, 
living,  Divine  Redeemer.  They  all  strove  to  edify  his  body, 
the  Church.  They  all  taught  that  in  him  alone  is  everlasting 
life.  As  they  pass  before  us  in  history,  we  discern  the  ex- 
cellence of  their  character,  we  feel  the  power  of  their  presence, 


54 

we  profit  by  the  variety  and  richness  of  their  gifts,  we  become 
acqufiinted,  through  them,  with  the  successive  generations  of 
believers,  and  we  realize,  to  some  extent  at  least,  the  oneness 
of  Christ's  mystical  body,  and  the  sweetness  of  communion 
with  saints. 

History,  still  again,  demonstrates  the  abiding  presence  of 
God  in  the  Church.  That  presence  is  the  solution  of  what 
were,  otherwise,  utterly  insolvable.  We  are  apt  to  think  of 
miracles  especially  in  connection  with  the  founding  of  Christ- 
ianity, and  as  the  necessary  vouchers  of  its  high  claims.  And 
so  indeed  they  were.  But  there  is  a  greater  miracle  than  any 
or  all  of  these.  The  continued  being  of  the  Church,  in  a 
world  like  this,  along  with  her  occasional  triumphs,  is  the 
miracle  of  all  time.  It  were  a  small  thing  to  heal  a  diseased 
limb,  or  open  a  blind  eye,  or  give  life  to  a  dead  body,  or  calm 
the  tempest  by  a  word,  in  comparison  with  the  work  of  be- 
getting sons  and  daughters  unto  God,  and  maintaining  truth 
end  holiness,  age  after  age,  among  fallen  and  hostile  men,  and 
confederate  and  mighty  devils.  No  conceivable  power,  less 
than  Divine  power,  could  do  it.  And  what  the  exigencies  of 
the  case  so  imperatively  demand,  History  shows  has  been 
actually  supplied.  All  along  the  pathway  of  the  Church  are 
the  footsteps  of  God,  the  memorials  of  his  presence  and  agency. 
His  voice  was  heard  in  the  garden,  if  denouncing  judgment, 
telling  also  of  grace.  His  Spirit  strove  with  the  generations 
before  the  flood.  His  presence  was  vouchsafed  to  the  Hebrew 
Patriarchs.  His  arm  wrought  the  deliverance  from  Egypt. 
His  pillar  of  fire  and  cloud  accompanied  the  tribes  in  the  wilder- 
ness. His  word  was  in  the  mouth  of  the  Prophets.  His 
dominion  was  represented  by  the  throne  and  sceptre  of  the 
Kings.  When  Christ  came  in  the  flesh,  God  was  with  him, 
and  he  was  God.  When  Christ  returned  to  his  glory,  he  said 
concerning  the  Eternal  Spirit,  "He  shall  abide  with  3'ou  for 
ever!"  It  was  not  a  mere  prediction.  It  was  no  conditional 
promise.     It  was  rather  a  part  of  the  constitution  and  law  of 


55 

the  Church,  during  the  present  dispensation.  It  has  been 
literally  realized.  The  Holy  Spirit  has  dwelt  with  his  people. 
His  presence  has  been  the  light  and  salvation  of  the  Church. 
It  is  he  who  wrought  the  simple  and  loving  faith  of  the  primi- 
tive disciples.  It  is  he  who  gave  courage  and  constancy  to 
the  Confessors  and  Martyrs.  It  is  he  who  raised  up  and 
qualified  the  long  line  of  faithful  pastors  and  teachers.  It  is 
he  who,  through  weary  ages  of  conflict  and  corruption,  pre- 
served the  pure  faith  of  the  Church,  and  continued  the  succes- 
sion of  the  believing  and  holy.  It  is  he  who  in  modern  days, 
has  re-inaugurated  the  great  work  of  missions,  and  is  now 
making  manifest  his  grace  and  power  in  numerous  and  glorious 
revivals.  And  all  this  is  a  prophecy  and  pledge  of  the  future. 
With  a  heavenly  origin,  with  a  holy  faith,  with  a  sanctified 
ministry,  with  the  indwelling  Divine  presence,  attested  by  a 
history  reaching  now  well  nigh  across  six  thousand  years,  how 
valid  the  hope,  how  grand  the  prospect,  and  how  sure  the 
triumph  of  the  Church  of  God  ! 

Such,  Fathers  and  Brethren,  is  a  me^-e  glance  at  the  work, 
in  its  two-fold  aspect,  assigned  to  me  in  this  sacred  Institution ; 
and  such  are  a  few  of  the  many  particulars,  by  which  the  in- 
terest and  importance  of  historical  studies,  in  connection 
with  the  plan  and  course  of  Redemption,  may  be  indicated.  I 
enter  upon  this  work  in  the  confidence  of  j'-our  sympathy  and 
prayers,  and  seeing  that  in  it  we  specially  serve  a  Church  so 
illustrious  in  its  place  and  influence  along  the  past,  so  scrip- 
tural and  powerful  in  its  position  as  to  the  present,  and  of  so 
glorious  promise  for  the  future;  and  above  this,  seeing  that  he 
is  a  most  precious  and  a  Divine  Saviour  whom  we  would  thus 
glorify,  shall  we  not,  one  and  all,  bring  to  it  our  choicest  labour 
and  our  richest  offerings?  Let  who  will  abide  in  their  tents. 
Let  us  arise  and  do  the  work  of  the  Lord ! 


TKo'  S.WaSner's  Liih  SBUiason  S'PHai? 


Professor  of  Historic  d  and  Pastoral  Theology 


FuhlzsJied.  Ij  Joseph  MMJson.  ^111  South  lO^SP  Fh£l^- 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS 

BY 

LEEOY    J.    HALSEY,    D.  D., 

PROFESSOR   OP   HISTORICAL  AND   PASTORAL   THEOLOGY,   AND   CHURCH 

GOVERNMENT. 

(57) 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  OF  L.  J.  UALSEY. 


It  is  ^vith  no  ordinary  feelings  of  misgiving  and  embarrass- 
ment that  I  stand  here  to-day,  to  take  part  with  my  brethren 
in  these  inaugural  services.  Until  within  the  last  few  days,  I 
have  not,  for  more  than  twelve  months,  ventured  to  address  a 
public  ussembl3^  After  eighteen  years  of  unremitting  labour 
in  the  i)rcaching  of  the  gospel,  1  was  compelled  by  loss  of  voice 
to  resign  the  pastoral  office,  and  to  desist  entirely  from  all  its 
public  functions.  Under  these  circumstances  I  must  crave  the 
greater  indulgence  for  such  remarks  as  I  may  be  able  to  make 
on  the  present  occasion.  But  called  by  the  voice  of  God's 
providence,  and  the  General  Assembly  of  our  Church,  to  bear 
a  share  with  my  respected  colleagues,  in  the  inauguration  of 
the  Theological  Seminary  of  the  North  West,  and  having  so 
far  obeyed  the  summons,  as  to  set  aside  all  opposing  engage- 
ments, and  to  appear  here  at  the  time  and  place  appointed  for 
our  work,  I  feel,  that  though  it  be  with  a  trembling  heart 
and  a  faltering  tongue,  some  public  utterance,  however  brief 
and  inadequate,  is  due  to  an  occasion  so  solemn  and  impor- 
tant. 

To  be  called  by  the  Church  to  aid  in  laying  the  foundations 
of  a  new  Theological  Seminary  in  this  queen  city  of  the  Lakes, 

(59) 


60 

or  to  be  called  any  where,  to  the  highly  important  work  of 
training  the  sons  of  Zion  for  the  holy  ministry,  is  a  position, 
which  twelve  months  ago  I  had  as  little  thought  of  occupying, 
as  I  had  of  being  sent  out  by  the  Church  on  one  of  her  great 
foreign  missions.  That  1  find  myself  in  such  a  position  now, 
and  that,  too,  in  a  condition  of  bodily  health  only  partially  re- 
covered from  the  wasting  cares  of  other  fields  of  labour,  is  to 
me  an  event,  which  1  can  reconcile  to  myself,  or  hope  to 
justify  to  others,  only  on  the  ground,  that  the  calls  of  God  and 
his  Church  have  seemed  to  demand  it.  For  the  great  work 
here  to  be  done,  I  feel  that  I  have  no  special  preparation  or 
qualification,  above  others  of  my  ministerial  brethren  all  over 
the  Church.  And  I  should  be  utterly  appalled  at  the  diflS.- 
culties  and  the  responsibilities  of  such  a  work,  were  it  not 
that  I  come  into  it  with  hands  already  inured  to  the  toils  of 
the  pastoral  office,  with  a  sincere  desire  to  learn  and  obey  the 
truth,  and  with  a  heart  ready  to  serve  the  Master  in  any  thing 
he  may  appoint,  while  humbly  relying  upon  his  grace  for  as- 
sistance. 

For  what  is  true  of  this  work  is  true  of  the  ministry  itself. 
"We  are  all  unworthy  of  it,  even  at  our  best  estate.  And  it 
becomes  us  all  to  say,  What  are  we,  and  what  our  father's 
house,  that  we  should  be  taken  from  following  a  few  sheep  in 
the  wilderness,  and  exalted  to  responsibilities  so  solemn  and 
sacred,  as  that  of  ministering  in  God's  great  name !  No  one 
in  the  Church  can  be  more  sensible  than  I  am  of  my  own  un- 
worthiness  to  be  either  a  preacher  of  God's  gospel  or  a  teacher 
of  God's  ministers.  But  I  would  desire,  so  far  as  I  can,  to 
adopt  the  sentiment  of  George  Gillespie,  when  called  to  stand 
up  for  the  truth,  before  the  learned  Colemans,  Seldens,  and 
Lightfoots  of  the  Westminster  Assembly.  "Let  no  man,  who 
is  called  of  God  to  any  work,  be  it  never  so  great  and  difficult, 
distrust  God  for  assistance,  as  I  clearly  found  at  that  great 
Assembly  at  Westminster.  If  I  were  to  live  a  long  time  in 
the  world,  I  would  not  desire  a  more  noble  life,  than  a  life  of 


61 

pure  and  single  dependence  on  God;  for,"  said  he,  "though  I 
may  have  a  claim  to  some  learning  and  parts,  yet  I  ever  found 
more  advantage  by  single  looking  to  God  for  assistance,  than 
by  all  the  parts  and  gifts  that  I  ever  could  pretend  to  at  that 
time !" 

Theology,  the  great  subject  matter  of  all  our  instructions 
here,  is  in  its  essence  the  knowledge  or  doctrine  of  God.  As 
a  science,  it  is,  both  in  the  order  of  nature  and  of  importance, 
the  first  of  all  the  sciences.  To  know  God  as  the  only  true 
God,  aiul  Jesus  Christ,  whom  he  has  sent,  as  the  only  Mediator 
is  eternal  life.  As  this  is  the  central  truth  cf  all  truth,  so 
the  knowledge  of  it  is  the  central  science  of  all  the  sciences 
man  can  know. 

Its  basis  of  truth  is  the  testimony,  of  God  in  his  written 
word;  precisely  as  the  foundation  of  all  natural  science  or 
philosophy  is  in  the  works  of  God,  or,  as  they  are  called,  the 
works  of  Nature.  The  Scripture,  therefore,  the  sure  testimony 
of  God  in  his  revealed  word,  is  the  great  text  book  of  Theo- 
logical Science;  just  as  material  and  physical  nature,  like 
another  scripture  of  a  lower  order,  is  the  text  book  of  all  the 
other  sciences.  In  a  certain  sense  God  has  revealed  himself 
everywhere  in  the  great  book  of  nature;  as  the  apostle  sjiys, 
The  invisible  things  of  him  from  the  creation  of  the  world  being 
clearly  seen,  even  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead.  But  we 
needed  the  light  of  another  book.  And  accordingl}^  in  a  much 
higher  sense,  and  with  infinitely  clearer  light,  God  has  re- 
vealed in  the  Bible  all  we  need  to  know  of  him,  while  in  this 
mortal  state. 

But  while  the  knowledge  of  God  himself  is  the  essence  of 
Theology,  it  includes,  at  the  same  time,  all  that  God  has  re- 
vealed in  his  word,  on  all  other  subjects.  Strictly  speaking, 
therefore,  Theology  embraces  all  that  knowledge  of  which  God 
is  the  author  in  the  Bible.  It  is,  therefore,  the  knowledge  of 
all  the  truth  respecting  God,  all  the  truth  respecting  man,  and 
all  the  truth  respecting  salvation.'-'     For  these  are  the  three 

*  Brcckinridpfe's  KuowIcJ^c  of  God.    Vol.  ii.  book  iv. 


62 

grand  subjects  of  all  revelation,  the  burden  of  all  the  prophets, 
the  stor^  of  all  the  evangelists,  the  never  absent  themes  of  every 
page  of  Scripture;  Grod  the  Creator  and  the  Sovereign  ;  man  the 
creature  and  the  sinner;  salvation,  the  remedy,  and  the  onl}^  pos- 
sible method  of  restoration.     And  hence  in  all  and  above  all, 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Mediator,  Jesus  Christ,  the  Saviour.    For  it  is 
in  Christ  Jesus  alone  that  these  three  great  subjects  of  all  revela- 
tion— God,  man,  and  salvation — are  harmonized.     We  behold 
God  in  him;  we  behold  man  in  him;  we  behold  salvation  in 
him.     And  therefore  as  combining  the  three  in  one,  he  becomes 
to  us  the  sum  of  all  revelation,  the  substance  of  all  Theology. 
Hence  it  is  in  Theology,  as  it  was  in  the  history  of  Redemp- 
tion.    Every  thing  stands  related  to  Christ  as  the  central  ob- 
ject.    All  the  rays  of  revelation  concentre  upon  him.'    All  the 
blessed  beams  of  Divine  light  emanate  from  him.     He  is  the 
sun  of   the   system.     For  four   thousand  years  every  thing 
pointed   to  his   coming,  and   prepared  the  way  for  it.     For 
eighteen  centuries  and  a  half,  everything  has  either  pointed 
back  to  what  he  did  and  suffered  on  Calvary,  or  else  is  point- 
ing forward  and  preparing  the  way  for  his  second  coming. 
And  so  in  like  manner,  our  Theology — our  instructions  and  our 
studies — must  all  point  to  him. 

There  may  be  many  departments  in  Theology,  many  methods 
of  teaching  it,  many  professorships  ;  but  there  can  be  but  one 
true  Theology,  even  as,  with  all  its  diversities,  there  is  but  one 
Bible.  At  whatever  point,  therefore,  we  begin  our  investiga- 
tions in  the  broad  fields  of  theological  science,  be  it  the  text 
of  the  sacred  word,  or  the  doctrines  of  revealed  truth,  or  the 
facts  of  the  wondrous  story,  or  the  ordinances  of  Divine  wor- 
ship, or  the  Church's  progress  across  the  ages,  we  must  seek 
to  find  Christ  there  : — "  Him  first,  him  last,  him  midst,  and 
without  end." 

But  while  all  theological  science  is  thus  one  grand  whole, 
a  perfect  body  of  divinity  whose  head  is  Christ,  the  experi- 
ence of  the  Church  has  proved,  that  it  can  best  be  taught,  es- 


63 

pecially  where  several  teachers  are  engafred  in  giving  instruc- 
tions simultaneously,  by  arranging  it  into  separate  and  conveni- 
ent departments,  to  be  assigned,  each  to  its  own  teacher,  and 
all  to  be  carried  on  abreast.  Such  divisions  are,  of  course,  al- 
ways somewhat  arbitrary ;  and  they  vary  somewhat  in  our 
different  seminaries.  At  present,  they  are  for  the  most  part 
four,  each  distinct  enough  for  a  separate  department,  and  all 
together  covering  the  whole  field  of  instruction.  The  most 
natural  and  scientific  classification  which  perhaps  the  subject 
admits  of,  would  be  the  following : 

First,  Exegelical  Theology  :  that  is,  the  Theology  of  Iler- 
meneutics  or  Interpretation,  including  all  Biblical  antiquities,  and 
the  original  tongues  of  the  sacred  word,  so  as  to  ascertain  clear- 
ly the  mind  of  the  Spirit  in  the  word  as  the  basis  of  our  science. 
Secondly,  Systematic  Theology :  that  is,  the  Theology  of 
doctrine,  or  as  it  is  commonly  called  Didactic  Theology,  inclu- 
ding also  the  defence  of  the  same,  or  Polemic  Theology  :  but 
Systematic,  as  containing  the  whole  system  of  Divine  truth 
drawn  from  the  written  word. 

Thirdly,  Historical  Theology :  that  is,  the  History  of  the 
Church  of  God,  both  in  the  Bible  and  out  of  it,  both  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  its  affairs,  and  in  the  development  of  its  doc- 
trines, as  exhibited  in  all  past  ages. 

Fourthly,  Practical  and  Executive  Theology :  that  is,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Church,  as  an  organized  kingdom  in  the  world, 
with  all  the  functions  and  duties  of  its  ministry  and  office 
bearers — including  all  pastoral  care  and  all  christian  experience. 
This  is  not  the  precise  arrangement  as  yet  adopted  in  any 
of  our  existing  seminaries.  Nevertheless  they  all  agree  in 
comprehending  all  of  these  departments  in  some  part  of  the 
couhe.  But  the  plan  prescribed  by  the  General  Assembly 
for  us,  in  this  new  Seminary  of  the  North  West,  accords  very 
nearly  with  that  which  I  have  just  marked  out.  The  chief 
difference,  and  that  is  not  material,  is  that  the  department  of 
Interpretation   or   Exegesis,    would   come  first  in  the  order ; 


64 

whereas  in  the  curriculum  of  our  Seminar^'-  it  is  last.  The 
mere  order,  of  course,  is  nothing ;  seeing  that  all  the  depart- 
ments are  to  be  carried  on  simultaneously  and  abreast.  And 
this  is  well :  for  while  the  student  gets  all  the  advantage  of  a 
division  of  labour  and  a  diversity  of  gifts,  he  is  compelled  at 
every  step  to  feel,  that  Theology  is  still  a  grand  whole. 

The  department  of  study,  which,  according  to  the  plan  of 
our  Seminary,  is  assigned  to  my  special  direction,  is  that  of 
Historical  and  Pastoral  Theology,  and  Church  Government.  In 
entering  upon  it,  it  is  exceedingly  important  that  we  should  get 
a  distinct  and  definite  idea  of  the  field  which  we  have  to  in- 
vestigate. In  getting  knowledge,  we  do  well  to  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  the  agriculturist,  who,  before  he  begins  to  plant,  or 
even  to  plough,  surveys  his  whole  ground,  and  lays  it  off  into 
well  defined  and  convenient  compartments,  ready  for  the  la- 
bourers. Otherwise  we  might  plough  at  random,  and  plant  to 
little  purpose.  It  seems  to  be  the  order  of  Providence,  that 
as  we  add  furrow  to  furrow  in  the  fields,  so  we  must  add  fact 
to  fact,  and  truth  to  truth,  one  at  a  time,  here  a  little  and  there 
a  little,  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  We  can  no  more  ex- 
pect to  get  knowledge  in  the  lump,  than  we  can  to  reap  the 
harvest  or  plough  the  fields  in  the  mass.  It  become  us,  there- 
fore, to  go  to  work  systematically  and  patiently,  as  knowing 
what  we  are  about. 

This  department  is  wide  in  its  range,  and  it  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  in  all  its  practical  bearings  both  upon  the  character 
of  the  ministry  and  upon  the  Church  itself.  It  embraces  all 
the  varied  topics  of  the  pastoral  care :  the  nature,  design,  and 
functions  of  the  ministry;  Homiletics,  or  the  composition  and 
delivery  of  sermons ;  the  whole  constitution,  polity,  worship, 
and  mission  of  the  Church  of  God  as  a  visible  organization  in 
the  world ;  together  with  a  historical  survey  of  the  different 
theories  and  opinions,  both  true  and  false,  on  all  these  points 
as  they  have  been  developed  during  all  past  ages,  and  as  they 


65 

have  been  attested  or  condemned  in  the  fierce  fires  of  so  many 
great  conflicts. 

Until  very  recently  these  nfrdiated  branches  of  study  were 
usually  divided  oil",  and  distributed  among  the  other  leading 
departments  of  the  course,  in  all  our  Theological  Seminaries. 
Now  they  are  for  the  most  part  assigned  to  a  separate  chair, 
as  their  close  affinity  and  great  practical  importance  demand. 
At  first  sight,  Historical  and  Pastoral  Theology,  llomiletics, 
and  Church  Government  may  look  somewhat  disconnected. 
But  it  will  be  found  on  examination  that  there  is  one  central 
idea  on  which  they  all  meet,  as  the  primal  and  fundamental 
truth  of  the  science.  That  is  the  true  theory  of  the  Church. 
This  underlies  our  whole  department,  and  gives  it  unity  and 
character  as  a  distinct  branch  of  Theology.  We  must  ascer- 
tain what  the  Church  is ;  what  is  its  true  nature,  object,  and 
end,  as  a  Divine  institute.  For,  manifestly,  there  can  be  no 
wise  and  consistent  action  in  the  administration  of  Church  af- 
fairs, or  in  the  discharge  of  ministerial  duties  :  that  is,  no  right 
pastoral  Theology,  and  no  right  practical  Theology,  except 
that  which  is  grounded  upon  the  right  theory  of  the  Church ; 
just  as  theory  is  essential  to  practice  in  every  thing  else. 

But  at  the  same  time  all  mere  theory  is  worthless,  unless 
it  developes  itself  in  a  wholesome  experience.  And  therefore 
inasmuch  as  the  grand  object  of  training  men  for  the  ministry 
in  au}^  Theological  Seminary  is  that,  as  master  workmen  for 
Christ,  they  ma}'  be  able  to  carry  the  Divine  theory  of  the 
Church  into  all  the  daily  duties  of  preaching  the  gospel  and 
watching  for  souls,  this  chair  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity  becomes, 
of  necessity  and  by  pre-eminence,  the  chair  of  Practice.  All  de- 
partments of  Theology  are  indeed,  or  ought  to  be  practical ;  in- 
asmuch as  the  object  of  all  of  them  is  to  point  the  sinner  and 
the  saint  to  the  Lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world.  But  this  above  all  others  is  practical.  Its  ofiice  is  to 
meet  the  student  as  he  comes  forth  from  the  armory  of  the 

other  chairs,  fully  furnished,  as  he  is  presumed  to  be,  with  the 
9 


66 

accumulated  resources  of  Exegetical,  Didactic,  Polemic,  and 
Narrative  Theology,  and  to  teach  him  how  he  may  best  wield 
these  weapons  of  truth,  for  the  salvation  of  sinners,  the  edifi- 
cation of  saints,  and  the  glory  of  God.     It  corresponds  some- 
what to  that  which,  in  the  curriculum  of  our  Medical  schools, 
is  known  as  the  chair  of  Theory  and  Practice.     It  embraces 
the  theoretical  knowledge  and  the  practical  administration  of 
all  those  great  remedial  agencies  and  institutes,  which   the 
Physician  of  souls  has  prescribed  in  his  word,  and  committed 
to  his  Church  for  the  healing  of  our  dying  race. 
.  This  department,  however,  owing  to  its  wide  range  of  sub- 
jects, has  not  yet  attained,  at  least  in  our  text-books,  that 
systematic  and  symmetrical  form  which  belongs  to  the  others, 
and  which  it  is,  no  doubt,  capable  of  receiving.    It  has  hither- 
to been  treated  too  much  as  a  mere  outline  of  isolated  rules 
and  duties,  more  the  result  of  individual  experiment,  than  of 
great  fundamental  principles,  grounded  in  the  very  constitution 
of  the  Church,  and  the  essential  nature  of  the  Gospel  as  a  rev- 
elation from  God.     We  see  no  reason  why  all  that  God  has  re- 
vealed in  the  Bible  touching  the  functions  of  his  Church,  and 
the  duties  of  her  ministry  and  other  officers,  may  not  be   as 
readily  classified  and  arranged  in  systematic  order  as  any  other 
truths  of  revelation ;  and  consequently  none,  why  the  depart- 
ment of  Theory  and  Practice  in  Theology  should  be  less  scien- 
tifically treated  than  the  corresponding  chair   in   Medicine. 
On  the  contrary,  the  difference  is  all  the  other  way ;  for  while 
Medicine  in  its  practical  application  to  the  maladies  of  the  hu- 
man body  is  at  best  but  a  human  science,  and  confessedly  one 
of  the  most  uncertain  of  all  the  sciences,  Theology,  in  its  prac- 
tical application  to  the  maladies  of  the  human  soul,  as  in  all  its 
other  aspects,  is  a  Divine  science,  and  is  as  certain  and  positive 
as  the  infallible  oracles  of  God  can  make  it.     As  however,  the 
questions  pertaining  to  this  whole  field  of  inquiry  have  now 
become  the  leading  and  most  vital  questions  of  the  age   in 


67 

which  we  live,  the  whole  department  will  doubtless  receive  a 
profounder  and  more  scientific  treatment  hereafter. 

At  present  the  best  scientific  term  which  we  have  for  it,  as 
being  at  once  the  briefest  and  the  most  comprehensive,  is  to 
call    it  Ecclesiology,  that  is,  the  doctrine  or  science  of  the 
Clinrch.     Regarding  it  thus  as  a  great  system  of  closely  af- 
filiated truths,  whose  central  idea  is  the  Church  of  Christ,  or 
Christ  in  the  Church,  it  naturally  includes  all  the  functions 
and  duties  of  the  ministry  in  the  whole  field  of  llomilctics 
and  the  Pastoral  care;  because  the  ministry  is  but  one  of  the 
great  gifts  which  Christ  bestowed  upon  his  Church,  when  he 
left  the  world.     So  that  to  know  what  God  has  revealed  touch- 
ing his  Church  on  earth,  is  to  know  all  that  he  has  revealed 
about  the  ministry;  even  as  the  whole  includes  the  parts.     And 
so  on  the  other  hand  a  full  Eccclesiology  would  also  necessarily 
include  all  the  opinions,  theories,  and  practices,  relating  to  the 
Church,  as  they  have  been  developed  under  all  dispensations 
through  all  past  ages;  thus  opening  to  our  view  the  immense 
field  of  Historical  Theology,  both  in   the  Bible   and  out  of  it. 
Ecclesiology,  to  be  complete,  must  take  in,  on  one  side,  the 
whole  practical  working  of  the  church,  with  all  its  officers  of 
government,  and  its  ordinances  of  worship,  as  an  existing  king- 
dom of  God  in  the  world  ;  and  on  the  other,  the  whole  past  pro- 
gress and  development,  through  which  this  kingdom  has  come 
to  be  what  we  now  behold  it. 

Hence  it  is  manifest,  that  our  true  scientific  starting  point 
in  this  whole  department,  and,  so  to  speak,  the  base-line  of  all 
our  subsequent  movements,  must  be  the  Church  of  Christ,  as 
his  Spirit  has  revealed  it  in  the  Scriptures,  as  his  providence 
and  grace  have  developed  it  in  all  human  history.  For  let  us 
not  forget,  that  the  true  Church  of  the  present  is  the  true 
Church  of  history,  and  that  the  true  Church  of  history  is  the 
true  Church  of  the  Bible.  The  Church  which  the  Son  of  God 
purchased  with  his  own  blood,  and  over  which  through  all  the 
Scriptures,  he  is  the  exalted  Head,  is  the  same  Church  over 


68 

wliicli  he  has  been  reigning  through  all  subsequent  history, 
and  over  which  he  now  reigns  and  rules  on  his  mediatorial 
throne  in  heaven.  The  Church  in  the  Bible,  the  Church  in 
histor}^,  the  Church  in  actual  operation  before  our  eyes,  and 
Jesus  Christ  in  all  and  over  all,  as  Head,  King,  and  God, 
blessed  for  ever:  this  is  the  primal  conception  of  the  depart- 
ment which  is  here  assigned  to  me. 

Such  is  the  wide  domain  of  Ecclesiology,  regarded  as  the 
science  of  the  Church  of  God.  You  will  readily  perceive,  from 
what  has  been  said,  that  it  may  be  viewed  in  a  threefold  as- 
pect, answering  somewhat  to  the  three  difierent  branches  of 
study,  embraced  in  this  one  professorship :  namely.  Church  Gov- 
ernment, Pastoral  Theology,  and  Historical  Theology.  First, 
as  a  survey  of  the  Church,  abstractly  and  objectively  consid- 
ered, in  her  whole  constitution,  polity,  order,  officers,  discipline, 
worship,  design,  and  destiny,  as  a  Divine  Institute,  or  visible 
kingdom  among  men,  that  is,  Theoretical  Ecclesiology. 

Secondly,  as  a  survey  of  the  Church,  concretely  and  practi- 
cally considered,  that  is,  as  a  Divine  Institute  in  actual  opera- 
tion among  men,  through  all  her  holy  ordinances  and  her  sacred 
office  bearers,  manifesting  her  inward  life  and  power,  and  ful- 
filling her  grand  mission  in  the  work  of  preaching  the  gospel, 
saving  sinners,  edif}dng  the  saints,  and  glorifying  God;  that  is 
Executive  and  Pastoral,  or  Practical  and  Experimental  Eccle- 
siology. 

And  thirdly,  as  a  survey  of  the  Church  in  her  onward  pro- 
gress across  the  ages,  her  trials  and  conflicts,  her  successes  and 
disasters,  her  fulfillment  or  neglect  of  duty,  as  a  Divine  In- 
stitute ordained  for  the  defence  and  diffusion  of  the  truth  of 
God,  the  very  pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth ;  that  is  Historical 
Ecclesiology.  First,  Ecclesiology  in  its  theory;  then,  Eccle- 
siology in  its  practical  working;  and  last,  Ecclesiology  in  its 
historical  development. 

Now  as  a  full  course  in  our  Seminary  contemplates  three 
years'  study,  we  may  find  it  most  convenient  to  follow  out  this 


69 

order,  devotinf^  one  year  of  the  three  in  succession  to  each  of 
the  three  great  divisions  of  our  subject.  At  the  same  time  we 
do  not  deem  it  best  to  pursue  any  one  of  them  exclusively, 
even  in  its  own  separate  year,  to  the  neglect  of  the  others. 
For  just  as  it  is  proposed  to  carry  on  the  studies  of  the  four 
professorsiiips,  simultaneously  and  abreast,  so,  to  some  extent 
at  least,  we  may  carry  on  abreast,  through  each  year  of  our 
course,  these  three  branches  of  the  department.  That  is  to 
say,  while  discussing-  the  theory  and  polity  of  the  Church  in 
the  Ih'st  year,  we  may  have  an  eye  also  to  its  present  practice 
under  that  theory,  and  to  its  historical  development  in  past 
ages.  And  while  discussing  the  varied  duties  of  the  Church 
and  the  ministry  in  the  second  year,  and  giving  a  fuller  atten- 
tion to  the  historical  development  in  the  third  year,  we  need 
not  forget  the  great  essential  principles  of  that  Divine  Insti- 
tute out  of  which  they  all  grow,  as  discussed  in  our  first 
year. 

And  as  all  Theology  is  a  unit,  a  grand  circle  of  truth,  of 
which  Christ  crucified  is  the  centre,  and  the  revelation  of  God 
the  circumference,  and  as  in  every  other  department  of  Theo- 
logy we  are  to  find  Christ  ever3'where,  shining  with  full  orbed 
glory  from  the  centre  to  the  circumference,  so  here  also  we  must 
find  and  exalt  Christ  in  the  Church,  There  is  no  true  Church 
now  in  the  world,  none  in  history,  none  in  the  Bible,  where 
Christ  is  not  exalted  and  adored  above  every  thing  that  is 
named  in  heaven  and  earth.  As  in  Didactic  and  Polemic 
Theology,  it  is  Christ  the  centre  of  the  whole  system  of  doc- 
trine ;  as  in  Biblical  and  Exegetical  Theology,  it  is  Christ  the 
burden  of  all  the  Scriptures;  as  in  Ecclesiastical  and  Narrative 
Theology,  it  is  Christ  the  sum  of  all  history,  God  of  providence 
and  grace;  so  here  in  Pastoral  and  Practical  Theology,  it  is  the 
same  Christ,  pervading  all,  filling  all,  governing  all,  blessing  all, 
according  to  his  promise:  Lo!  I  am  with  you  always  even  unto 
the  end  of  the  world. 

Nor  shall  he  ever  cease  to  be  supreme  in  that  Church  which 


70 

he  hath  purchased  with  his  blood.  Let  him  reign  then  for 
ever  on  the  highest  throne  of  our  affections,  for  he  alone  is 
worthy.  Let  him  reign  supreme  and  without  a  rival,  in  all 
our  Theology  and  over  all  our  schools,  as  he  does  in  his  own 
inspired  word,  and  in  that  heaven  to  which  he  has  gone. 

We  need  not  wander  from  the  truth,  nor  ever  surrender  one 
jot  or  tittle  of  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints,  while 
Christ  holds  the  place  of  supremacy  in  our  hearts.  However 
wide  the  seas  of  error  around  us,  however  dark  the  night  of 
human  speculation,  and  however  fiercely  all  the  winds  of  false 
doctrine  may  blow,  there  is  no  danger  to  our  A'^essel  while 
Christ  is  at  the  helm.  Let  him  direct  all  our  studies,  let  him 
answer  all  our  inquiries,  and  himself  be  the  crowning  object 
of  all  our  affections,  and  we  cannot  miss  the  clear  pathway  of 
truth,  and  the  blest  haven  of  life.  We  ma}^  have  to  sail  over 
treacherous  seas,  and  encounter  adverse  winds;  but  this  pole 
star  of  truth  never  ceases  to  shine;  and  by  its  light  we  may 
take  our  reckoning,  and  tell  our  latitude  and  longitude  on  the 
widest  and  the  wildest  ocean  of  human  error. 

Such  is  a  brief  and  imperfect  outline  of  the  field  of  study  to 
-which  I  have  been  •  specially  appointed  in  this  institution. 
Without  enlarging  any  further  upon  it  at  present,  it  may  be 
more  in  accordance  with  the  design  for  which  we  are  met  to- 
day, to  advert  now  briefly  to  a  few  of  the  many  and  striking 
considerations,  which  press  upon  us  all  alike,  as  we  survey  the 
whole  joint  labour  which  lies  before  us  in  the  Seminary. 

In  every  possible  view  we  may  take  of  such  a  work  as  this, 
the  building  up  of  another  School  of  the  Prophets,  and  the 
training  of  young  men  to  preach  the  everlasting  gospel,  it  is 
confessedly  a  great  and  good  work.  In  all  the  work  that  is 
done  beneath  the  sun,  there  is  certainly  nothing  more  impor- 
tant, more  difficult,  and  more  blessed.  While  of  ourselves  we 
might  well  shrink  from  it,  appalled  by  its  magnitude  and  gran- 
deur, and  crying,  Who  is  sufficient  for  these  things  ?  yet  with 
God's  blessing,  there  is  everything  to  stimulate  and  encourage 


71 

us  to  its  ftiithful  performance.  Its  whole  nature,  relations,  and 
influences,  both  for  time  and  eternity,  are  such  as  to  inspire 
every  pious  heart  with  the  highest  enthusiasm,  and  nerve 
every  arm  that  can  work  for  Christ  to  the  greatest  exertion. 
Not  only  those  of  us  who  are  called  to  give  instruction  as  Pro- 
fessors, and  the  young  men  who  may  be  committed  to  our  care 
as  pupils,  but  all,  it  seems  to  me,  who  feel  an  interest  in  the 
prosperity  of  Zion,  the  directors,  friends,  and  patrons  of  the 
Seminary,  the  community  in  whose  bosom  it  is  located,  and  the 
whole  body  of  the  Church,  to  whose  fostering  care  it  is  com- 
mitted, should  ponder  well  the  important  character  and  bear- 
ing of  the  work  here  taken  in  hand. 

Let  us  look  for  a  moment,  then,  at  our  undertaking  here,  as 
a  work  intimately  connected  with  all  the  great  interests  of 
truth,  the  growth  of  the  Church,  and  the  glory  of  God  among 
men.  It  is  not  more  certain  that  there  is  a  Bible  in  the  world 
the  veritable  word  of  God,  than  that  there  is  a  visible  Church 
or  kingdom  of  God  amongst  men,  to  which  he  has  committed 
the  oracles  of  truth,  and  by  and  through  which  he  has,  in  all 
ages,  manifested  his  glory.  This  Church  is  the  house  of  God, 
the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  pillar  and  ground  of  the 
truth,  and  has  been  perpetuated  with  increasing  power  and 
glory,  in  every  age  and  every  land,  from  its  first  organization 
to  the  present  hour.  It  consists  of  all  those,  together  with 
their  children,  who  hold  the  essential  saving  faith  of  the  gos- 
pel, love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity,  and  worship  God 
in  the  Spirit  according  to  his  word.  This  Church  is  to  be  per- 
petuated to  the  end  of  time  and  fill  the  world  with  its  glory; 
for  in  terms  as  emphatic  as  were  ever  used  by  the  Son  of  God, 
he  has  told  us  that  it  is  founded  upon  the  rock  of  ages,  and 
that  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it.  Nay,  it 
has  a  destiny  and  relations  infinitely  higher  and  more  glorious 
than  any  which  refer  to  the  present  world.  For  we  arc  told 
that  "  God  created  all  things  by  Jesus  Christ,  to  the  intent, 
that  now  unto  principalities  and  powers  in  heavenly  places 


72 

might  be  known  by  the  Church  the  manifold  wisdom  of  God." 
But  even  as  it  regards  this  world  alone,  there  are  three  things 
that  have  been  indissolably  bound  together  from  the  begin- 
ning :  namely,  the  truth  of  God,  the  Church  of  God,  and  the 
glory  of  God.  The  Church  as  the  instrument,  the  truth  as  the 
means,  and  the  glory  as  the  end  of  all. 

Now  it  is  the  fashion  in  our  day  to  think  slightingl}^  of  all 
these  great  things,  or  rather  to  ignore  their  existence  alto- 
gether. But  the  infidelity  which  under  the  guise  of  Christian- 
ity, can  admit  the  Bible,  and  deny  the  existence  of  the  Church 
of  God,  is  not  a  particle  more  entitled  to  respect,  either  for 
its  logic  or  its  piety,  than  that  w^hich  repudiates  the  Divine 
authority  of  the  Bible  out  and  out.  Because  there  is  nothing 
to  which  the  whole  word  of  God  gives  a  more  decisive  and 
abundant  testimon}^  than  to  this  Church  or  kingdom  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Nor  is  it  an}'-  more  clearly  settled  that  the  Church 
herself  exists  by  Divine  appointment,  than  it  is  that  her  ado- 
rable Head  and  King  hath  ordained  the  ministry  of  reconcilia- 
tion, to  be  perpetuated  in  her  bosom  till  the  end  of  time. 
There  is  a  species  of  baptized  infidehty,  current  every  wherein 
the  world,  and  in  the  Church  too,  the  infidelity  of  our  most 
approved  popular  literature,  rejoicing  in  the  boast  of  liberal 
opinions,  which  affects  to  ignore  or  despise  the  ministry  as  a 
thing  having  no  more  claims  to  a  Divine  mission  than  any 
other  order  of  men.  But  why  not  reject  Christianity  and  the 
gospel  itself  along  with  the  Church  and  the  ministr}"- ?  The 
gospel  is  no  more  of  God  than  the  ministry  appointed  to  preach 
it.  Christianity  is  not  a  particle  uiore  Divine  than  the  Church 
which  its  great  Founder  purchased  with  his  own  blood.  And 
neither  of  them  has  any  other  warrant  than  that  Divine  book 
which  tells  us  with  absolute  certainty,  that  they  all  alike  are 
ordained  of  God.  Most  assuredly,  if  there  is  any  Divine  in- 
stitution in  the  world,  it  is  the  ministry  of  reconciliation,  ap- 
pointed and  ordained  for  the  defence  of  the  truth,  the  procla- 
mation of  the  gospel,  and  the  glory  of  God  in  the  salvation  of 


men.  It  is  Divine  in  its  origin,  Divine  in  its  authority,  Divine 
in  its  work,  and  Divine  in  its  influences  for  time  and  eternity, 
because  it  is  in  all  accompanied  and  supported  by  the  might}'' 
power  of  God.  "After  that  in  the  wisdom  of  men,  the  world 
by  wisdom  knew  not  God,  it  pleased  God  by  the  foolishness 
of  preaching  to  save  them  that  believe."  "Now  then  we  are* 
ambassadors  for  Christ,  as  though  God  did  beseech  you  by  us, 
we  pray  you  in  Christ's  stead,  be  ye  reconciled  to  God." 

These  things  are  all  bound  together  by  indissolubleties,  the 
Church,  the  ministry,  the  truth,  the  glory  of  God,  the  salva- 
tion of  men.  And  there  is  no  demonstration  clearer  than  that 
all  the  greatest  blessings  of  God  to  our  race,  both  temporal 
and  spiritual,  for  time  and  eternity,  flow  through  these  chan- 
nels. The  greatest  good  any  of  us  can  do  in  this  world,  and 
the  greatest  good  we  can  receive,  is  in  immediate  connection 
with  this  whole  divinely  appointed  instrumentality  of  the 
Church. 

Now  it  is  to  perpetuate  and  to  multiply  these  agencies,  to 
qualify  and  to  equip  the  young  servants  of  Jesus  Christ,  for 
the  work  of  the  ministry,  the  work  of  proclaiming  salvation 
to  our  dying  race,  of  extending  the  triumphs  of  the  Redeem- 
er's kingdom  over  all  the  earth,  and  of  promoting  the  glory 
of  God  in  the  highest,  confessedly  the  greatest  work  that  is 
done,  or  can  be  done,  for  God  or  man,  beneath  the  sun,  it  is 
for  this  that  the  Church,  whose  servants  we  all  are,  by  her 
highest  and  most  solemn  action,  has  here  established  a  new 
Theological  Seminary.  She  has  located  it  here,  beyond  the 
utmost  bounds  of  all  her  older  Seminaries,  here  at  the  haven 
of  these  great  waters  of  the  North  West,  and  at  the  place  of 
concourse  of  all  these  mighty  multitudes  of  people,  under  the 
conviction  that  such  an  institution  was  demanded  here  by  all 
her  highest  interests,  the  spread  of  the  gospel,  the  salvation 
of  sinners,  the  defence  of  the  truth,  and  the  glory  of  God. 

And  what  a  field  is  this  in  which,  and  for  which  we  are 
called  to  labour !     Consider  our  work  here  in  its  more  immedi- 

10 


74 

ate  bearings  upon  this  great  North  Western  section  of  our 
common  country.  Whatever  good  God  may  enable  any  of  us 
to  do  here,  now  or  in  time  to  come,  in  the  way  of  building  up 
this  institution  and  preparing  men  to  preach  the  gospel,  is  good 
done  not  only  for  his  Church,  but  for  our  common  country  and 
for  the  world.  The  Church  of  God  has  a  great  mission  to 
perform  for  our  country  and  for  the  world.  It  is  hers  to  save 
sinners,  to  train  the  rising  generation,  to  instruct  the  people  in 
truth,  and  righteousness,  and  virtue.  And  thus,  in  God's  name 
it  is  hers  to  bless  the  country,  to  bless  the  world. 

Since  our  ascending  Saviour  commissioned  his  Apostles  to 
go  forth  into  all  the  world  and  preach  this  gospel  to  every 
creature,  there  surely  never  was  a  more  important  and  invit- 
ing field  for  ministerial  labour,  than  this  vast  region  of  the 
North  West,  stretching  away  with  its  swelling  millions  from 
these  great  inland  seas,  the  gates  of  its  commerce,  to  the  un- 
measured regions  of  the  farthest  West,  the  tributaries  of  its 
coming  wealth  and   power.     If  we   look  over  this   wonderful 
field,  so  new,  so  immense,  so  diversified  in  its  populations,  as 
yet  so  destitute  of  religious  privileges  and  the  means  of  grace, 
and  still  so  potential  for  good  or  evil  on  the  character  and  des- 
tiny of  our  common  country,  we  cannot  fail  to  see  that  the  one 
great  want  of  it  every  where,  paramount  to  every  other  want, 
is  a  ministr}^  of  able  and  faithful  men  to  preach  the  gospel. 
Shall  we  say  that  a  hundred  such  ministers  might  this  day  find 
employment  in  it,  in  our  branch  of  the  Church  alone  ?     Per- 
haps it  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  say  a  thousand.     Does  a 
3'oung  man  of  talents  and  piety  wish  to  make  the  most  of 
life,  to  serve  God  in  his  generation  by  doing  the  greatest  possi- 
ble good  for  his  Church,  for  his  country,  and  for  the  souls  of 
his  dying  fellow  men  ?     Does  he  wish  to  consecrate  time,  tal- 
ent, soul,  body,  all  he  has  and  is,  to  the  cause  of  the  Master 
who  hath  bought  him  with  his  blood  ?     Here  is  the  work  for 
him ;  here  is  the  field  for  him ;  and  now  is  the  time  for  him, 
in  preaching  the  gospel  of  the  blessed  God  to  the  myriads  of 


75 

this  great  North  West.     Now  is  the  time  to  stem  the  torrent 
of  its  incoming  errors,  and  vices,  and  false  doctrines.     Now  is 
the  time  to  lay  the  foundations  of  virtue,  morality,  social  or- 
der, and  political  prosperity,  deep  and  broad  in  the  hearts  of 
the  rising  generation.     Now  is  the  time  in  all  these  new  States, 
and  in  ten  thousand  rising  towns,  cities,  and  villages,  to  build 
up  cliurches,  schools,  colleges,  all  civil,  religious,  and  charita- 
ble institutions,  which  shall  stand  to  do  good,  when  the  hands 
that  built  them  shall  cease  to  labour,  and  the  eloquent  tongues 
that  pleaded  for  them  shall  be  silent  in  the  grave.     It  is  bless- 
ed and  glorious  to  work  for  such  a  Master  in  an}^  country 
under  any  circumstances.     How  glorious  and  blessed  is  it  to 
work  at  such  a  time,  and  in  such  a  field  as  this  !     It  would  be 
enough  to  work  for  such  a  country  as  it  now  is.    But  to  work  now., 
is  to  work  for  it  as  it  will  be  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  hence, 
when,  if  our  work  is  well  done,  thousands  yet  unborn  shall  rise 
up  and  call  us  blessed. 

Now  it  is  to  occupy  such  a  field  as  this,  to  bless  such  a 
country  in  all  time  to  come,  by  supplying  it  with  faithful  and 
full}'"  furnished  ministers  of  the  word,  that  the  General  Assem- 
bly has  located  a  Theological  Seminary  at  Chicago. 

If  we  take  a  map  of  the  United  States,  and  draw  a  straight 
line  from  the  south-western  corner  of  the  State  of  New  York 
to  the  nearest  point  of  Texas,  we  shall  have  an  axis  which 
geographically  divides  the  present  settled  portions  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  into  two  very  nearly  equal  parts.  At  present  the 
preponderance  of  population  is  in  the  portion  lying  to  the 
south-east  of  this  line.  But  the  ratio  is  changing  every  day, 
and  there  can  be  little  question  that  in  a  few  years  the  mnjor- 
ity  of  our  people  will  be  living  on  the  north-west  side.  Of 
this  north-west  portion,  Chicago  is  nearer  the  geographical 
centre  tlian  any  other  great  city  now  existing  or  likely  to  exist. 
Its  position,  at  the  extreme  south-western  head  of  this  great 
chain  of  inland  seas,  is  such  that  it  is  not  likely  ever  to  lose 
this  advantage  of  being  the  great  central  city  of  the  North 


76 

West.  Now,  of  the  six  Seminaries  of  our  Church,  five  are  lo- 
cated on  the  south-east  side  of  this  line  ;  and  the  only  one  in  the 
whole  vast  region  to  the  north-west  of  it,  is  that  which  we 
are  here  to-day  to  inaugurate.  This  single  fact  is  all  we  need 
both  to  illustrate  the  magnitude  of  our  field,  and  to  vindicate 
the  wisdom  of  the  Assembly  in  founding  this  Institution. 

But  we  cannot  stay  to  develope  these  thoughts  now.  The 
work  is  great.  The  time  is  short ;  the  business  is  urgent ;  and 
what  our  hands  find  to  do,  let  us  do  with  all  our  might.  Our 
sufficiency  is  of  God,  and  through  Christ  strengthening  us,  we 
can  do  all  things.  The  day  in  which  we  live,  and  the  place 
where  we  stand,  the  time  past,  the  time  to  come,  and  the  signs 
of  the  present  time,  all  conspire  to  encourage  and  cheer  us 
on  to  renewed  exertion  in  the  work  of  the  Lord. 

It  is  wonderful  to  think  what  God  has  done  for  our  Zion, 
and  to  see  what  he  is  doing  all  over  the  earth.  The  soul  of 
the  greatest  of  all  the  Apostles,  could  he  return  to  the  earth, 
might  well  be  moved  within  him,  to  see  what  our  eyes  have 
seen,  to  hear  what  we  hear  of  God's  wonderful  works  among 
men.  Look  where  we  stand  to-day,  on  the  map  of  the  world 
and  on  the  chart  of  human  history.  The  gospel  which  we 
preach,  and  for  the  defence  of  which  this  new  Seminary  is 
now  opened,  is  the  gospel  which  began  at  Jerusalem.  And 
here  we  are,  almost  at  the  centre  of  a  continent,  which  when 
it  began,  was  unknown  even  to  human  conjecture.  Here  we 
stand  in  the  midst  of  the  freest  people  and  the  brightest  civil- 
ization that  ever  existed  on  the  globe;  a  civilization  and  a 
people  that  seem  destined  to  endure  till  they  usher  in  the  lat- 
ter day  glory  and  the  second  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man. 
Here  we  stand  midway  between  the  Polar  regions  and  the 
Southern  Gulf,  almost  midway  between  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Pacific,  and  on  the  very  verge  of  those  great  inland  seas  which 
together  form  the  Mediterranean  of  our  Continent,  a  great 
highway  of  commerce,  which  may  yet  play  as  important  a 
part  in  our  future  history,  as  the  Mediterranean  has  done  in 


I  / 


the  history  of  the  Old  World.  Here  we  stand  upon  the  border 
of  wh.'it  was,  a  little  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  a 
vast  untrodden  wild ;  on  one  hand  the  wide  expanse  of  deep 
Ijlue  waters  stretching  away  to  the  east,  uncheered  by  a  sail, 
on  tile  other  the  boundless  prairies,  stretching  away  like  anoth- 
er ocean,  towards  the  setting  sun,  untenanted  by  civilized  man  ; 
but  now  the  busy  abode  of  a  hundred  thousand  souls,  and  the 
commercial  centre  of  an  empire  of  mighty  States  ;  here  we 
stand  in  the  good  providence  of  God,  solemnly  and  hopefully 
to  inaugurate  another  of  those  institutions  of  learning,  which 
are  at  once  the  highest  known  to  the  Church  of  God,  and  the 
most  important,  if  not  indeed  the  most  ancient,  known  to  hu- 
man civilization.  As  from  such  a  point  of  vision,  and  such  a 
stage  of  our  progress,  we  survey  the  wonders  of  Providence, 
we  may  indeed  say,  Lo  I  what  hath  God  wrought ! 


Tlio'  r.  .Va.JnsTS  LI*.  3?  mii-^z-.  S-piilai! 


y/^^^^        t^<fl^ 


Professor  of Eiblical Literature  and  Exe^esi: 


stihUsheci  .ajr.Jbseph  \r£.Wason.  N^lll  Sovuh  lO'^P  PkCl^ 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS 

BY 

WILLIAM   M.   SCOTT,   D.  D., 

PROFESSOR   OF   BIBLICAL   LITERATURE   AND   EXEGESIS. 

(79) 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  OF  W.  M.  SCOTT. 


Brethren  of  the  Directory  and  Christian  friends  : — In  the 
part  of  this  service  which  you  have  required  of  me,  it  has  oc- 
curred to  me  that  you  would  naturally  expect  some  indication 
of  the  conception  which  I  have  of  the  nature  and  ends  of  the 
department  of  instruction  intrusted  to  me  in  this  Seminary,  and 
the  general  idea  of  the  methods  by  which  I  propose  to  attain 
those  ends  in  the  actual  course  of  instruction. 

It  is  the  peculiarity  of  our  holy  religion  that  it  exists 
outwardly  in  the  form  of  a  Revelation  from  God,  that  Revela- 
tion in  its  complete  and  final  form  having  been  made  matter 
of  record,  under  such  Divine  inspiration  as  to  secure  absolute 
infallibility  in  matter  and  form.  Accordingly  that  record  in 
the  form  in  which  it  was  completed  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  the 
source  of  knowledge,  and  the  standard  of  authority,  in  such 
sense  that  every  word  put  therein  by  direction  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  we  are  bound  to  receive,  and  no  word  without  that  record 
are  we  bound  to  receive  as  of  equal  authority.  For  the  pur- 
poses of  this  Revelation,  for  both  communication  .and  record, 
God  has  employed  the  marvellous  framework  of  language,  the 
instrument  and  vehiculum  of  human  thought.  Speech  is  em- 
bodied thought.     Written  speech  is  embodied  thought,  not  em- 


11 


(81) 


82 

balmed,  but  immortalized.  It  neither  dies  nor  changes,  while 
the  record  is  preserved,  so  that  while  men  retain  the  language 
in  which  the  record  subsists,  they  may  come  into  living  contact 
and  communion  with  the  original  living  thought. 

For  the  purposes  of  the  world-revelation,  God  chose  not 
one,  but  two  languages:  the  one  to  subserve  the  ends  of  a 
national,  limited,  preparatory  dispensation;  the  other  to  com- 
plete and  complement  the  revelation,  and  adapt  it  to  universal 
diffusion  amongst  men,  and  to  the  great  purpose  of  persuasion, 
TzscOscy,  to  the  production  of  that  state  of  mind,  which  is  at  once 
the  means  of  salvation  and  of  growth,  faith,  -lazc;,  the  result 
of  persuasion,  and  the  principle  of  obedience.  This  is  not  the 
time  nor  the  place  for  the  discussion  of  the  reasons  of  these 
things ;  why  God  chose  two  languages  rather  than  one,  and 
why  the  two  he  did  rather  than  any  other  of  the  manifold  forms 
that  human  speech  has  assumed. 

It  is  enough  that  these  are  facts,  acknowledged,  undeniable, 
and  tiierefore  to  be  accepted  in  all  their  consequences.  This 
Divine  Book  in  these  two  languages  is  put  into  the  hand  of  a 
divinely  -ordained  order  of  Church  ofticers,  to  be  by  them 
taught  to  men,  for  the  obedience  of  faith  among  all  nations. 
Whatever  else  these  men  may  know  or  not  know,  this  Divine 
Book,  of  which  they  are  the  professional  teachers  and  de- 
fenders, they  are  surely  bound  to  know — know  in  every 
sense  and  to  every  intent,  to  which  they  are  set  to  teach  it  to 
others.  Accordingly  it  is  of  the  reason  and  nature  of  the  case 
that  they  who  are  thus  to  teach  must  themselves  first  be  taught 
— taught  what  they  are  to  teach,  the  actual  contents  of  this 
Divine  record. 

They  are  to  be  taught,  not  simply  as  others  are  taught,  with 
the  view  of  their  own  personal  persuasion  and  obedience,  but 
also,  and  mainly  here,  with  the  view  to  their  teaching  others. 
This  involves  the  two  processes  of  learning  and  communicating, 
of  understanding  and  fitly  interpreting.  |; 

It  is  apparent  then  how  fundamental  this  department  of  the 


83 

languages  and  interpretation  of  the  original  Scriptures  must  be 
to  the  whole  scheme  of  professional  training  of  the  authoritative 
teachers  of  this  recorded  religion.  To  this  must  everything 
be  referred  as  its  source.  Upon  correct  interpretation  of  this 
Divine  record  in  its  only  inspired  form  must  everything  taught 
here  rest  for  its  vaUie  and  authority.  And  when  the  men 
trained  here  go  forth  to  their  work  amongst  men,  everything 
they  shall  accomplish  for  God  in  the  way  of  the  salvation  of 
souls  must  be  done  through  the  means  of  this  very  truth  of 
God.  In  all  that  men  may  say  ahoid  this  truth,  in  all  the 
masses  of  human  learning  that  have  been  accumulated  upon  it, 
there  is  nothing  in  the  way  of  saving  truth,  but  what  itself 
has  directly  furnished.  This  necessitates  the  keeping  of 
the  active  ministry  in  constant  contact  with  the  truth  in  its 
inspired  sources,  if  they  would  do  well  and  faithfully  the 
work  to  which  they  are  ordained,  teach  men  these  given  words 
of  God,  for  this  is  the  test  of  fidelity  which  the  Saviour  ap- 
plied to  himself:  For  I  have  given  unto  them  the  loords  which  thou 
gavest  me. 

The  end  of  this  department  of  instruction  in  the  Seminary 
I  conceive  to  be,  to  meet  this  demand  of  the  active  ministry, 
to  enable  them  to  commune  with  the  living  truth  of  God  in 
its  inspired  forms  and  sources,  to  hear  constantly,  and  to  in- 
terpret for  the  people,  the  very  words  of  the  Spirit,  to  get  be- 
tween it  and  all  human  authority,  and  gain  the  right  use  of 
all  human  aids.  And  thus  to  be  able  to  say  to  the  people, 
whose  souls  they  are  to  win  and  to  feed  with  knowledge, 
with  the  confidence  of  those  who  know,  Thus  saith  Jehovah, 
near  the  word  of  the  Lord. 

"With  this  as  the  central  idea  of  the  design  of  this  depart- 
ment, many  others  naturally  connect  themselves  more  or  less 
intimately.  Though  it  is  proper  to  regard  some  things  as  set- 
tled by  those  who  have  gone  before  us,  yet  there  is  a  stage  in  our 
progress  where  justice  to  ourselves  and  to  them  requires  us  to 
examine  the  grounds  on  which  they  have  rested  their  decisions, 


84 

so  that  their  mere  authority  shall  not  stand  as  the  foundation 
of  our  ftiith,  but  take  its  proper  place  as  evidence.  So  that, 
though  at  the  outset  it  is  proper  and  wise  for  us  to  accept  at 
the  hands  of  our  fathers  what  they  deliver  to  us  as  Scripture, 
there  comes  a  time  in  the  course  of  preparation  for  the  teach- 
ing of  these  Scriptures,  as  the  word  of  God  for  the  faith  of 
men,  when  the  question  must  be  raised  and  answered :  What 
is  Scripture?  And  on  what  grounds  have  these  different  books 
in  this  collection  been  always  received  by  the  faith  of  the 
Church?  This  requires  the  stream  of  mingling  evidence  and 
authority  to  be  traced  to  the  highest  accessible  point,  and  the 
internal  character  of  each  to  be  examined  with  enlightened 
fairness,  so  that  if  possible  our  reception  of  every  book  of 
Scripture  shall  be  grounded  on  the  very  evidence  that  taught 
the  first  hand  receiver  that  it  was  the  very  word  of  God. 

Intimately  connected  with  this  is  the  great  question  as  to 
the  state  of  the  record.  As  it  has  had  various  fortunes  in  the 
course  of  the  ages,  as  it  has  been  intrusted  to  the  fidelity  of 
many  hands  in  its  preservation,  as  its  friends  and  its  enemies 
have  had  something  to  do  with  it,  what  is  the  result  as  we 
have  it  now,  in  our  Hebrew  and  Greek  Bibles?  This  of  itself 
must  be  avast  department  of  inquiry  and  learning;  and  though 
reason  and  philosophy  require  us  to  accept  as  settled  the  con- 
clusion of  our  predecessors,  there  is  a  time  and  place  in  the 
progress  of  preparation  for  the  teaching  of  this  book  to  examine 
for  ourselves  these  questions,  so  that  our  minds  may,  as  far  as 
the  nature  of  the  case  allows,  rest  on  the  very  grounds  of  be- 
lief that  satisfied  those  who  have  most  fully  examined,  con- 
verting again  their  authority  into  testimony. 

The  state  of  the  languages  when  the  record  was  made  in 
each,  the  history  of  the  changes  through  which  they  passed  to 
that  state,  the  places  they  held  in  the  great  families  of 
languages  to  which  they  severally  belong,  together  with  the 
intimate  nature  and  providential  career  of  each,  which  fitted  it 
in  a  peculiar  manner  to  its  office,  as  the  vehicle  of  the  revela- 


85 

tion,  all  fall  nppropriatcly  within  the  province  of  this  dopart- 
ment,  and  enter  cssentiall}^  into  tlie  ideal  rcsnlt  at  which  it 
aims  in  the  thoroughly  quiililied  minister,  able  rightly  to  divide 
the  word  of  truth. 

So  also  would  it  be  presumptuous  foil}'  for  the  young  man 
to  be  taught  to  regard  the  labours  of  predecessors  as  worthless 
to  him;  all  that  has  been' done  rightly,  much  that  has  been 
done  w^'onglyand  wickedly  in  the  way  of  actual  interpretation 
and  exposition,  will  therefore  justly  claim  his  attention,  with 
the  principles  on  which  all  the  work  of  interpretation  is  to  be 
done,  and  all  results  judged  and  tested. 

Gathering  all  these  within  the  province  of  one  department 
of  instruction,  limiting  the  time  to  the  narrow  space  of  less 
than  three  years,  and  making  the  necessary  abatements  for  the 
fact  that  one  of  these  languages  must  be  taught  from  its  very 
elements,  and  the  other  in  many  cases  had  better  be,  and 
making  the  needful  allowance  for  three  other  cotemporaneous 
and  exacting  departments  of  instruction,  and  you  will  be  able 
to  judge  how  far  it  would  be  just  to  expect  results,  rather  than 
beginnings,  and  mere  indication  of  methods,  and  training  to 
habits  of  study  and  investigation. 

II.  The  general  methods  which  I  propose  to  myself  on  which 
to  conduct  the  practical  instruction  of  this  department,  are 
readily  deduced  from  the  nature  and  the  ends  of  it,  already 
briefly  suggested.   * 

1.  The  first  thing  required  is  that  the  students  be  made 
Greek  and  Hclreiu  scholar's.  This  does  not  mean  simply  the 
ability,  with  the  aid  of  lexicon  and  grammar  and  perhaps  trans- 
lation to  "get  a  lesson,"  but  such  an  acquaintance  with  them 
as  to  make  the  reading  of  a  chapter  or  a  book  in  either  no 
longer  a  terror  or  a  drudgery,  if  not  an  absolute  pleasure  and 
delight.  It  is  such  a  knowledge  as  to  make  the  original  much 
more  clear  and  suggestive  than  any  version  can  possibly  be, 
as  will  make  it  the  only  satisfactory  source  of  knowledge  of 
any  passage   to  which  attention   is   specially  directed.     The 


86 

method  of  attaining  this  is  expected  to  be  the  old  familiar  one 
of  requiring  the  drudgery  at  the  hand  of  the  student.  The  only 
secret  of  language  in  its  elementary  stages  of  acquisition  is 
repetition,  until  the  conscious  exercise  of  memory  is  no  longer 
necessary. 

2,  This  will  naturally  bring  with  it  the  practice  of  keeping 
them  employed  in  the  actual  work  of  interpretation,  of  keeping 
them  always  in  contact  with  the  actual  teachings  of  the  original 
Scriptures,  allowing  the  merely  human  learning  of  the  subject 
to  come  as  little  between  the  mind  and  the  sacred  text  as  pos- 
sible. The  analogy  of  teaching  a  mechanical  trade  or  training 
an  athlete  furnishes  an  illustration  of  the  reasonableness  of 
this.  The  master  does  not  content  himself  with  only  or  chiefly 
explaining  the  principles  of  the  different  exercises,  with  their 
adaptation  to  the  development  of  the  various  muscles  of  the  body, 
nor  even  with  performing  before  his  pupils  the  various  opera- 
tions of  the  master  workman,  or  the  trained  athlete.  The 
chief  part  of  the  instruction  is  in  guiding  the  actual  exercises 
of  the  learners,  so  as  through  their  own  voluntary  power  and 
exertions  to  reach  the  result.  It  is  by  doing  their  best  in 
trying  to-day,  that  they  will  do  the  same  thing  better  to-morrow. 
Eminently  thus  in  the  matter  of  interpreting  a  written  record 
in  any  language,  and  especially  one  not  native.  Every  sin- 
cere, well  directed  attempt  to  reach  the  sense,  and  explain 
a  passage  of,  the  sacred  record  is  a  gain  in  all  the  requisites 
for  another  attempt. 

Until  this  result  is  attained,  the  collateral  learning  of  the 
subject  is  very  much  wasted  in  the  attempt  to  communicate 
'it,  and  therefore  may  be  safely  left  to  a  very  subordinate 
place,  or  to  future  acquisition.  I  know  there  is  danger  con- 
nected with  this  method,  of  a  result  expressed  in  exaggerated 
form  and  severity  by  a  witty  reviewer,  exhibited  in  the  minis- 
try who  had  been  personally  trained  by  Simeon,  that  he  sent 
them  forth  armed  with  an  oyster  knife,  instead  of  the  sword 
of  the  Spirit.     The  ability  to  draw  and  quarter  a  text,  and  get 


87 

out  of  it  the  four  divisions  and  six  reflections  of  ;i  sermon  is 
not  the  kind  of  ability  aimed  at.  But  the  power  of  attaining 
the  very  mind  of  the  Spirit,  from  the  very  words  of  the  Spirit, 
and  all  the  light  shed  upon  the  particular  passage  from  a  know- 
ledge of  all  the  other  utterances  of  the  Spirit  and  the  Divine 
proportion  of  faith,  is  the  ideal  result;  and  then  to  em- 
ploy this  knowledge,  j^^curate,  broad,  logical,  in  communicating 
the  same  truths  in  appropriate  forms  to  the  minds  of  the 
people. 

This  I  conceive  to  be  no  disparagement  of  human  learning, 
or  of  the  pursuits  of  the  mere  scholar.  It  is  following  the 
method  of  Divine  wisdom,  which  has  been  justified  by  the 
highest  merely  human  wisdom.  The  great  satirist  and  poet 
of  Rome  expresses  the  ideal  result,  when  he  cautions  us  to  be- 
ware of  the  man  of  a  single  book.  His  observation  had  shown 
him  that  the  man  who  thoroughly  possessed  himself  of  the 
spirit,  and  yielded  himself  to  the  educating  power  of  one  really 
great  book,  was  the  man  of  jeal  force  and  dangerous  efficiency. 
The  thorough  mastery  of  resources,  the  prompt  energ}^  of 
effort,  which  make  men  of  men,  equal  to  their  work  whatever 
it  may  be,  all  come,  not  so  much  from  a  hurried  acquaintance 
with  many  books,  as  the  thorough  possession  of  the  mind  with 
one  really  great  and  educating  book. 

And  surely  I  need  not  dwell  in  this  presence  upon  the 
character  and  power  of  the  Bible  as  such  a  great,  informing, 
educating  book  to  the  human  soul.  When  God  puts  this  book 
into  the  hands  of  a  class  of  men  to  study  it  up  to  the  highest 
measure  of  their  power,  he  requires  them  to  be  men  of  the  single 
book  in  this  eminent  sense,  of  making  it  the  instrument  of  their 
personal  education,  and  the  means  of  their  power  iu  the  forma- 
tion of  other  minds.  And  it  may  be  safely  predicted  as  of 
the  nature  of  the  case,  what  the  best  experience  demonstrates 
as  the  actual  result,  that  the  ministers  who  are  most  the  men 
of  this  single  book,  and  the  people  who  are  trained  under  their 
influences,  will  be  the  highest  specimens  of  vigorous  thinking, 


88 

and  efficient  working  men.     I  need  but  point  you  to  the  land 
of  Scotland,  for  both  an  illustration  and  proof  of  all  this. 

This  view  of  the  case,  you  would  naturall}''  expect  from  one 
who  had  been  summoned  from  the  ranks  of  the  active,  practi- 
cal ministry,  to  take  charge  of  this  department  of  instruction 
in  your  Seminary,  rather  than  such  as  would  be  natural  in  one 
whose  life  had  been  devoted  to  the  graceful  pursuits  of  the  spec- 
ulative, elegant  scholar,  whose  whole  converse  has  lain  among 
books,  without  taking  the  time  to  turn,  and  employ  his  acqui- 
sitions as  instruments  of  power  over  his  fellow  men,  especially 
in  bringing  them  to  the  knowledge  of  God  for  their  salvation. 
Such  men  have  their  high  and  honoured  use  and  office,  and  it 
will  be  a  sad  day  for  the  ministers  of  religion,  if  they  should 
ever  lose  a  thorough  sympath}^  with  them.  They  are  the  en- 
gineers of  human  thought  and  progress,  pushing  their  examina- 
tions, and  opening  broad,  practicable  roads  for  the  great  army 
of  humanity.  But  the  great  body  of  the  actual  ministry  must 
ever  be  directing  officers  of  the  march,  keeping  compact  the 
columns,  taking  care  of  the  hospitals  and  the  general  discipline 
and  efficiency  of  soldiers  and  camp  followers.  Their  post 
must  generally  be  with  the  main  hody,  but  in  thorough  sym- 
pathy with  the  pioneers. 

3.  It  may  not  be  judged  amiss  for  me  to  bespeak  your  co- 
operation, in  all  the  ways  in  which  that  co-operation  can.  tend 
to  the  general  result,  in  your  several  offices  of  Directors  and 
Presbyters.  As  directors  the  students  here  should  recognize 
and  feel  that  your  eye  is  ever  upon  them,  encouraging,  stimu- 
lating, requiring  high  attainments  in  these  central  studies  of 
the  Christian  ministry.  But  it  is  in  your  places  as  Presbyters 
that  most  may  be  done  to  elevate  the  standard  of  the  coming 
ministry,  by  practically  showing  that  the  knowledge  of  the 
Greek  and  Hebrew  Scriptures  is  an  actual,  as  well  as  formal 
requirement  for  licensure  and  ordination ;  that  such  a  know- 
ledge as  will  be  of  use  to  them  in  the  ministry,  is  what  you  re- 
quire, rather  than   such  a  smattering  as   will  merely  enable 


89 

them  to  stand  an  examination,  and  be  most  conveniently 
forgotten,  when  the  ordeal  is  past.  IIow  many  Presbyteries 
are  untrue  to  themselves,  and  to  the  interests  of  the  rising 
ministry  in  this  respect,  it  would  not  bo  seemly  here  to  discuss. 
But  it  is  perfectly  apparent  how  futile  must  be  the  effort  of  a 
Seminary  to  maintain  a  high  standard  of  scholarship  in  this 
department,  in  the  midst  of  surrounding  Presbyteries,  that 
constantly  discharge  their  office  of  trial  and  judgment  in  such 
ways,  as  to  operate  effectually  in  lowering  or  debasing  the 
standard.  Let  us  at  least  have  the  encouragement  that  the 
highest  attainments  to  which  we  can  bring  the  3'^oung  men  that 
shall  go  out  from  us  here,  shall  be  made  the  actual  hona  fide 
standard  of  3'our  requirements,  according  to  the  laws  of  the 
Church,  and  we  shall  feci  the  power  of  such  a  sanction  in  the 
whole  course  of  instruction.  Let  us  be  able  to  tell  our  students 
with  confidence  that  really  creditable  attainments  in  these  vi- 
tal studies  are  not  merely  necessary  to  the  proper  discharge 
of  the  work  of  the  ministry,  but  will  be  held  an  essential  con- 
dition of  admission  to  the  office,  and  we  shall  be  in  less  dan- 
ger of  slights  and  evasions  in  the  work  of  the  student.  If  you 
let  him  know  that  real,  thorough  knowledge  alone,  will  be  his 
passport  to  that  high  and  sacred  office,  the  entrance  to  which 
you  are  divinely  set  to  keep ;  that  he  need  not  apply  to  you 
at  all,  until  he  has  the  attainments,  our  work  here  will  be  di- 
vested of  much  of  its  most  discouraging  difficulty. 

4.  As  one  great  part  of  the  training  of  the  ministry  should  al- 
ways be  promotion  of  their  own  personal  piety  and  holiness,  it 
may  be  hoped  that  the  department  of  their  studies  which  brings 
them  most  constantly  and  intimately  into  contact  with  the 
sacred  truths  of  God  in  their  inspired  forms,  may  be  so 
managed  by  the  blessing  of  God  as  to  tend  perpetually  in  that  ^ 
direction.  Eminent  examples  of  the  highest  learning,  imbued 
with  the  most  earnest  and  humble  spirit  of  devotion,  have  de- 
monstrated that  this  result  is  not  impossible,  but  on  the  con- 
trary that  there  can  be  nothing  more  flivourable  to  spirituality 

1:2 


90 

of  mind  and  growth  in  the  graces  of  the  heart  than  these  pur- 
suits, requiring  the  severest  mental  application  to  the  forms 
of  truth  in  these  venerable  tongues.  This  is  of  the  reason 
of  the  case,  since  these  truths  are  given  to  sanctify  the  soul. 
And  it  is  not  what  men  may  say  about  them,  not  the  human 
learning  that  has  been  employed  in  their  illustration,  but  the 
living  words  as  they  proceeded  from  the  mouth  of  God  that 
are  efficacious  to  this  result. 

The  aim  shall  be,  never  to  allow  the  student  to  forget  that 
it  is  God's  word  he  is  dealing  with,  in  every  stage  of  his 
knowledge  of  the  tongues  in  which  he  chose  to  speak  to  men, 
and  that  the  guide  who  only  can  lead  him  into  all  truth  is 
the  Holy  Spirit  given  in  answer  to  prayer.  The  spiritual  dis- 
cernment which  is  necessary  to  the  salvation  and  sanctifica- 
tion  of  the  man's  own  soul,  is  the  very  discernment  of  the 
truth  which  is  the  condition  of  communication  to  others.  The 
study  of  the  Scriptures  as  a  means  of  grace,  as  well  as  a 
means  of  culture  and  furniture,  shall  therefore  be  kept  in  con- 
stant view. 

With  these  conceptions  of  the  nature  and  ends  of  this  de- 
partment of  instruction  in  this  Seminary,  and  these  purposes 
as  to  the  methods  upon  which  it  is  to  be  conducted,  I  cast 
myself  on  your  generous  indulgence,  and  the  aid  of  Him  whose 
prerogative  it  is  to  call  and  qualify  his  ministers  to  the  end  of 
time.  It  may  argue  in  your  judgment  an  inadequate  sense 
of  the  nature  of  the  work,  that  I  venture  upon  it  at  all,  from 
the  labours  and  exactions  of  a  pastoral  charge,  which  allowed 
little  time  or  thought  for  the  patient  study  and  wide  range  of 
learning  required  in  this  vast  field  of  knowledge.  Some  of 
you  know  how  difficult  it  is  for  the  laborious  pastor  to  keep 
abreast  of  the  learning  of  his  profession.  Some  of  you  per- 
haps know  how  hard  it  is  to  retain  even  the  acquisitions  of 
his  student  days.  Let  me  ask  of  you  then  a  little  time,  be- 
fore you  apply  to  me  in  judgment  the  lofty  standards  of  those 
whose  transcendant  powers  have  been  for  their  whole  lives 


91 

devoted  to  these  vast  rang-es  of  study.  Perhaps  students  ma}'- 
not  make  the  less  progress  with  one  ^vho  is  obliged  to  travel 
so  much  in  their  company  as  to  sympathize  in  all  their  ex- 
periences, to  a})preciate  all  their  diflicultics,  and  share  in  the 
joy  of  all  their  fresh  discoveries. 

That  true  modesty  which  generally  requires  a  man  to  say 
nothing  of  himself  may  sometimes  demand  the  thing  it  gen- 
erally forbids.  I  may  be  pardoned  for  judging  such  to  be  the 
the  case  now,  even  if  the  judgment  be  mistaken. 

Why  am  I  here,  bearing  the  part  I  now  do  in  these  solemn 
and  important  transactions?  I  have  not  sought  it.  Those  of 
you  who  know  most  of  the  matter,  know  that  1  was  not  even 
consulted,  know  that  1  sincerely  sought  to  shun  it  after  the 
voice  of  the  Church,  to  which  I  owe  my  highest  earthly  alle- 
giance, had  been  pronounced  solemnly  bidding  me  take  the 
service.  None  knew  so  well  as  I,  and  therefore  none  more 
sincerely  distrusted  my  fitness  for  the  work.  Sincerely,' 
earnestly,  I  sought  to  put  by  me  the  call  that  summoned  me 
away  from  the  work  of  my  choice,  and  a  people  whom  I  loved 
and  still  love,  with  no  common  measure  of  tenderness.  But 
the  General  Assembly,  my  brethren  and  friends,  and  as  I 
believe  my  Master,  judged  otherwise,  and  1  humbly  bow  to 
their  decision.  In  convulsive  sorrow  I  separated  myself  from 
a  people  whose  generous  love  seemed  to  w\arm  to  deeper 
tenderness  by  our  being  called  to  part.  The  sadness  of 
that  deep  sorrow  still  rests  upon  my  heart,  and  adds  to  the 
deep  solemnity  with  which,  under  any  circumstances,  I  must 
accept  the  perils,  the  responsibilities,  and  the  toils,  which  if 
left  to  myself  I  would  have  gladly  shunned,  with  the  purpose 
still  to  do  what  God  enables  me,  to  justify  the  act. 

Nothing  but  a  profound  conviction  that  it  is  the  Master's 
call,  and  a  humble  but  abiding  sympathy  with  the  objects 
of  the  great  Christian  brotherhood  in  whose  name  and  by 
whose  sanction  all  these  proceedings  are  had,  has  brought  me 
here. 


92 

In  the  bosom  of  one  of  the  youngest  Synods,  in  the  heart 
of  this  youthful  city,  far  out  in  the  centre  of  this  vast  con- 
tinent, with  a  vast  free  empire  rising  towards  the  setting  sun, 
the  whole  Presbyterian  Church  comes  to  accomplish  that  last 
and  most  difficult  work  of  our  organized  Christianity,  the  proper 
teaching  of  those  whom  God  shall  call  as  the  teachers  of  his 
people.  With  all  her  priceless  heritage  of  history,  with  all  her 
gifts  in  trust  for  the  souls  of  men,  with  all  her  love  for  God, 
for  coujitry,  and  for  truth,  she  comes  to  bear  her  part -in  con- 
quering this  rising  empire  to  the  Prince  of  Peace.  She  comes 
to  raise  up  and  qualify  her  sons  to  preach  the  truth  as  he 
hath  given  it  to  her,  committing  it  to  faithful  men,  who  shall 
be  able  to  teach  others  also.  Men  who  shall  dare,  as  her 
great  fathers  dared,  to  maintain  and  defend  the  integrity  and 
sufficiency  of  God's  truth  and  gospel;  who  shall  have  the 
learning  to  know  how  far  he  goes,  and  the  courage  to  go 
that  far,  and  to  know  where  he  stops,  and  the  sometimes 
greater  courage  to  stop  just  there ;  who  shall  be  as  careful 
to  teach  nothing  but  the  truth,  for  the  faith  of  men,  as  the 
whole  truth;  who  shall  be  as  slow  to  add,  or  allow  others 
to  add  to  what  he  hath  proclaimed  as  his  law,  as  to  take,  or 
allow  to  be  taken,  aught  therefrom — even  in  his  name. 
She  does  not  ordain  and  establish  this  Seminar}'-  to  lower 
the  standard  of  learning  in  her  ministr}^,  nor  to  invent  for 
them  any  other  message  to  the  souls  and  faith  of  men,  but 
that  old  story  of  the  cross.  This  day's  work  recalls  a  mo- 
mentous career  over  which  that  Church  has  already  past. 
These  proceedings  point  to  results  vast  beyond  all  that  can 
be  predicted  by  man,  and  commit  the  Church  of  which  we 
are  members  to  a  future  which  she  may  not  have  the  grace 
to  estimate  aright.  According  to  her  faith  shall  it  be  done 
to  her,  and  done  by  her.  May  the  voice  and  the  influence 
that  shall  go  forth  from  this  Seminary,  even  to  countless 
generations  of  teachers  and  pupils,  be  such  as  to  cheer  on- 
ward to  higher  efforts,  and  broader  conquests,  and  more  ex- 


93 

hausting  sacrifices,  and  deeper  trust  in  God,  the  hosts  that 
shall  be  called  from  their  graves  of  worldlincss  and  sin  by 
the  voice  of  these  heralds  of  the  truth.  And  may  the  spirit 
of  the  first  great  Teachers  of  the  first  great  Seminary  of  this 
Church  upon  these  shores  be  perpetuated  in  all  the  depart- 
ments of  this  youngest  born  of  the  bright  sisterhood,  till  the 
ministry  of  men  shall  be  set  aside  by  the  bright  appearing  of 
the  Son  of  God. 


1    1012  01147  9658 


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